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

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, every time I meet with constituents, the topic of immigration comes up. The government has left a mess by opening the floodgates to get all kinds of people into Canada, millions and millions of them, without even thinking about the economic impact on Canadians, such as there being no schooling or housing available and no health care or social supports. The Liberals have left this mess, and now we know the impact on Canadians is shown every single day. This is a mess that belongs to the government, and no matter what it does, it is not going to be able to fix it. Bill C-12 is a very small attempt, if the government ever gets serious about doing this.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, the member's response to the previous question about the RCMP was that the Liberals needed a mirror. The leader of the official opposition said that the RCMP was “despicable”. I am using the words of the leader of the official opposition. He owes Canadians an apology. Liberals do not need to look in the mirror. What we need from the leader of the Conservative Party is a public apology to Canadians. Does he not agree—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Edmonton Manning has 10 seconds to respond.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, I extend my offer of another mirror to this member.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, I know it is not exactly tradition to ask for a round of applause in this House, but our Conservative caucus deserves one today. That is because when the Liberals first introduced the bill in its original form, we fought long and hard against this disaster. It was because of our pressure that the Liberals backed down on the worst of it.

Thanks to the work of our Conservative caucus, the government has not given powers to Canada Post to open any mail, including simple letters, without a warrant. Our work stopped the government from banning cash payments and donations of more than $10,000. We stopped the government from having the ability to access personal information without first seeking a warrant. We stopped the government from being able to use Canadians' personal banking information if it suspected that someone was involved, in any way, in money laundering.

This is a list of groups that were insulted by the ham-fisted first attempt at the bill. In June, 300 organizations were opposed to the government overreach included in the first version of the bill, and it is quite a list. It included the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the BC Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Labour Congress, the United Church of Canada, the Migrant Rights Network, the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International and OpenMedia. They are all opposed. It is hard to believe how many people the Liberals could possibly offend. They have to work hard to cause this kind of outrage.

However, we are not done. There is more. The bill was also opposed by the HIV Legal Network, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Climate Action Network Canada, the Centre for Free Expression, the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association and the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council. Even with this newer, improved bill, there is still opposition from the likes of Amnesty International Canada and other organizations.

These groups are working to protect civil liberties, data privacy and refugee rights, and they all strongly oppose the legislation. They say it tries to fast-track, rather than address, many aspects of the previous bill, which was called Bill C-2.

It is shocking that the Privacy Commissioner said the Liberals did not even consult him before the bill was considered. They did not consult him when they were trying to grant themselves sweeping new powers. They wanted to access Canadians' personal information from service providers, including banks and telecoms. We are talking about access to vital personal information without so much as a warrant.

That is the kind of overreach that the Liberal government would have love to see. I know Canadians are rightly suspicious of government overreach, and they should be. We have seen how the Liberal government tries to take an inch and turn it into a mile.

For example, let us look at what the Liberals are doing to law-abiding gun owners. The government is attacking law-abiding gun owners. In a typical Liberal overreach, the government is trying to force these good citizens to give up the legally purchased and owned guns that they use for hunting and sport shooting. This is the type of government control that alarms Canadians, and it is typical of the Liberals. They want an inch, and it somehow turns into a mile. Conservatives will continue to fight on that front. We will continue fighting so that law-abiding gun owners are not punished for wanting to hunt or go sport shooting.

At the same time, the government still refuses to have mandatory prison sentences for gangsters who use guns to commit crimes. We know that the vast majority of gun crimes are committed using guns that have been illegally smuggled across the border. It is not grandpa with his gopher gun who is committing crimes, yet the Liberals want to go after law-abiding gun owners. Can Canadians believe that? It is incredible. It is almost unbelievable.

Here is another classic example of the Liberal government's overreach: its ridiculous EV mandate. If the Liberals get their way, by 2035, under the EV mandate, Canadians will not be able to buy new gas-powered or diesel-powered vehicles. Can we imagine that? This mandate is a punitive tax on drivers, because those EVs are very expensive, but it is so typical of these “Ottawa knows best” Liberals.

The thing that gets me is that, right now, hybrid vehicles are actually fairly popular in Canada. This mandate would outlaw—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

May I interrupt the hon. member? Someone's phone is ringing, and it may disturb the interpreters.

We found it.

The hon. member for Edmonton Griesbach.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, the vehicle manufacturers of Canada are dead set against this EV mandate, as are all the major car manufacturers. I have talked to representatives from the industry, and they are all dead set against it. How does it even make sense that in a climate as cold as Canada's, the government would force such an insane law upon us?

I have a friend who has a Tesla. He loves it in the summer. He barely even drives it in the winter because when he turns on the heater, as he tells me, it sucks so much of the battery that he worries he will not be able to get back and forth from work. Now the government has paused the mandate for a year. That is true, but it needs to be killed completely, and Conservatives will continue to fight this government overreach.

Now, let us get back to the legislation at hand. The Liberals claim that the new bill, Bill C-12, would crack down on precursor chemicals, which is great. Those are the chemicals that are used to manufacture illegal drugs. At the same time, the Liberal health minister has recently refused to rule out approving additional legal drug consumption sites.

This summer I toured the area around a major drug consumption site in my riding of Edmonton Griesbach with the Edmonton Police Service. To say it was a disaster is an understatement. These sites are allegedly, supposedly, used by addicts to safely inject drugs, including fentanyl, but the reality is that they are just not working. Unfortunately, on my tour, we noticed someone right outside the consumption site in my riding of Edmonton Griesbach injecting drugs. This site, I might add, is located not that far from a day care. What the Liberals are doing with these sites is shocking and appalling.

I have talked with police, and they say that these sites increase the amount of drug activity in the area. The drug dealers are naturally drawn to the area; they know they can sell their wares there. It is like a magnet for them, and we can see the sad, dejected people who are struggling with this illness. It has resulted in a spike in violent crime in the area, including murders. In addition, for all the people who argue that there is so-called safe supply, there is nothing safe about injecting drugs into one's system, especially fentanyl.

It is especially bad in Chinatown. My Edmonton riding includes half of Chinatown, and it is really tragic to see the effect on a community that was once thriving, vibrant and very safe. There was a bakery there that had been in business for 60 long years, but because of the kind of crime linked to these injection sites, the store had to close. They could not keep the addicts out of their shop. They had been broken into. Crime was rampant, and it caused this Canadian small business to close. That is so sad.

Now in Chinatown, the most common sight seems to be “for lease” and “for rent” signs, and it was once such a safe, thriving neighbourhood. I have seen the tragedy of people slumped in the streets, obviously struggling with addiction, and it is largely due to these consumption sites that the Liberals like to encourage. It is shocking that they encourage these sites.

Does it not make sense that, if we truly are a caring society, rather than pushing people into these sites, we do the humane thing and help people recover? Do we not owe that to the most vulnerable in our society? Do we not owe them that, as opposed to, in some cases, watching them die on the street?

As I have mentioned, the original version of the bill, Bill C-2, included significant changes to the immigration system. My riding has a significant amount of immigration casework. I live in a very diverse riding. I recently hosted an event to welcome new Canadian citizens in Edmonton, but we know the Liberals have been very poor on that front. They have broken the immigration system. Conservatives will continue to fight on all these fronts.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, one of the things I have noticed from Conservatives is that they like to make a statement. It is somewhat misleading, and I am being kind. Let me give a specific example. The member makes reference to safe injection sites, which are under the jurisdiction of provincial governments. Other Conservative members have made reference to injection sites' being around, for example, schools and playground areas.

The Conservatives try to blame this on the federal government, yet it is a provincial and municipal, in particular provincial, responsibility. The Conservatives are suggesting the federal government should override provincial jurisdiction, but instead of trying to be bold and say what it is, they try to give the false impression that Ottawa is responsible for the matter.

I am wondering whether the member can provide his explanation as to why the Conservatives tend to want to mislead Canadians on important issues.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is not misleading; the Liberals agree with the sites wholeheartedly. More recently, the health minister refused to rule out injection sites, even near day cares. It is shocking.

I rode with the frontline police officers who have to police around these sites, and they are just disgusted. It has made their lives so difficult, and if the Liberals had some leadership, they would be vehemently opposed to these things in order to support our good law enforcement people.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will give my colleague a chance to put on his earpiece so that he can understand one of the two official languages of the House.

My question is about the number of officers the government promised to hire. In April, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister promised to hire 2,000 more officers: 1,000 CBSA officers and 1,000 RCMP officers. Last week, six months later, he repeated what he had already promised during the election campaign.

I would like to understand the Conservative Party's position. Are the Conservatives prepared to say that this situation is unacceptable? We are constantly being promised hires that never materialize. I would like to hear the Conservatives' opinion on the number of officers to be hired and when these hires should be made in order to further secure our borders.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is so typical of the Liberals that they promise and promise but do not fulfill. We have a problem at the borders. We saw what happened with Roxham Road, for instance: People poured in, and now we are facing challenges for housing, for schooling and for many things. “Overpromise and underdeliver” is the motto of the Liberal Party of Canada.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, BC]

Madam Speaker, we are looking at another border security bill, and I am reflecting back on what we have seen over the past 10 years in my riding of Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies.

There was the largest drug lab bust ever in Canadian history in the community of Falkland, which some referred to as being in the middle of nowhere. I would argue that it is actually in the middle of everywhere, only kilometres off the main highway, Highway 97, which runs north-south completely through the province of British Columbia, and only minutes away from the Trans-Canada Highway, exactly halfway from Vancouver to Calgary. It is the middle of everywhere, yet after that drug bust, we have heard little more than that one arrest was made. There was a massive drug bust, the largest in Canada, and only one arrest.

Would the member say this is an example of the Liberals' failure to address our border security and the drug problem in Canada?

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, I could not have said it better myself; that is exactly it. The member nailed it. We have a serious problem with fentanyl, and the Liberals are doing very, very little to address this very grave problem.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on behalf of the citizens of Calgary Centre and speak about the new bill that is before us.

The actual title of the bill is 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, but I say we should call Bill C-12 the short Liberal title, “We broke the immigration system, and we messed up public safety, border security and law enforcement, but do not worry; we are back to fix it because we know what we are doing.” In other words, it could be called “I break it then fix it. It is my version of job security”, or “If I did not break it first, how would anyone know how good I am at fixing it?”

It is the classic Liberal playbook: They break the system then hold a press conference to announce they are fixing it. They light the fire then show up with a watering can and call it leadership.

The issues we have to address in the bill are based on several parts of the bill. Bill C-12 has numerous parts to it, but a couple of objectives: security of Canada's borders, of course, and the integrity of the Canadian immigration system. For the sake of the public who may be following, I will break down further what is known as an omnibus bill.

The bill is composed of 11 parts that would amend various statutes, including the Customs Act, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Cannabis Act, the Oceans Act, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and its regulations, the Retail Payment Activities Act, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act.

There is a lot for me to unpack. There is an option for me to spend 10 minutes talking about a plethora of sources and what we can do with the bill going forward. It started with Bill C-2, much of which was pressed on the government by the Trump administration in the United States, which forced us to look at some of the security measures that were not happening in Canada at that point in time. We were pushed to the wall to actually accomplish some things.

The bill came back to the House. The opposition, my colleagues, revisited it, and the Liberal government has taken out of the initial bill a bunch of the quite offensive parts that would really have impeded civil liberties. The government has come back with Bill C-12, which would actually address some of the issues that have long been simmering in Canadian society and have caused significant problems.

Bill C-2 was an error, a Liberal misstep, and now we need to rectify it. If the Liberal government really needs help drafting the kind of legislation that actually works, my Conservative colleagues and I are willing to write the legislation for them to make sure we get the security we need in this country, both in the immigration system, which we have seen explode in the last number of years, and in the border security realm.

There are a number of things going on in the bill for me to pick from. Let us note that it is a fix for the Liberal government's first attempt at the bill, but we must go through fixes in the House at times, and we are willing and happy to do that with this legislation.

I would like to speak to the issues of the illicit drug trade, organized crime, money laundering and human trafficking. For 10 years, the Liberal government has been duly informed of these attacks on Canada's expectations of maintaining peace, order and good government in this country. There are problems that have been evident for a long time.

Money laundering was addressed in budgets delivered by the government, but it never took any action. Dealing with organized crime and the illicit activities that go with it were always kicked down the road. It has been all talk and no action. Let me say that ignoring the avails of organized criminals is, by default, accepting the consequences of organized crime.

Opioids like fentanyl are ruining the lives of Canadians. Fifty thousand Canadians have perished over the last eight years from the use of fentanyl and opioid-related drugs. This has visited misery upon their families, upon our streets and upon our society in general.

Let me share a personal story. Last January, across the street from my office, I went to pick up my dry cleaning, and there was a young man dying on the sidewalk. I was the first person on the scene. I got on my knees and did everything I could to get that man's heart beating. One thing runs through a person's mind: their kids. I have four boys, and that is what ran through my mind at that point in time, that this could be one of my sons.

The situation is a scourge. I do not know the man's backstory but, for 20 minutes, I helped revive him, and I begged other people to help me. That experience does not leave a person. This is something we need to think about, as far as how it impacts all of society.

Imagine losing your sister, brother, or even one of your parents. Imagine losing a loved one with whom you will never again share a meal, a laugh, or a memory, a loved one whose dreams you will never see come true and who you will never get to see grow older. This is what thousands of Canadian families are experiencing every day as they are struck by the scourge of fentanyl. Things could be different, but the current government is failing in its primary mission, which is to protect the public.

Tent cities are growing in every major city in Canada. I represent a riding downtown. The Canadians who live in tent cities are not safe; they are not secure. This is not a future that we see for our kids. It is not a future for any Canadian. The scourge of addiction and homelessness should never have been ignored. This is about priorities, and the priorities for Canadians are very clear.

There seems to be comfort in ignoring the obvious. Obviously, criminals are profiting. What is the number of car thieves considered statistically normal before society pushes back? There are higher insurance costs, higher policing costs and escalating violence; the crimes are not victimless.

One of my proud moments as the member of Parliament for Calgary Centre was my opposition to a second so-called safe consumption site in downtown Calgary, at a place called the Calgary Drop-in Centre, where homeless people can go in Calgary. It is right next to Chinatown, a very important part of downtown Calgary, and to a new development called East Village.

East Village is an area that was built to bring families back downtown. There are lots of nice towers with three-bedroom condos in them. During that time, families were actually leaving because they did not want to raise families on streets that were trafficked by the drug pushers and criminals looking to profit from people's addiction. Imagine one's kids in that type of area.

Think about the homeless people themselves, who have to go through a gauntlet of death in order to get to a homeless shelter. This was never a solution. It was brought forward as a potential solution by the provincial UCP, the United Conservative Party government. The New Democrats, provincially, were all onside, and I will correct my colleague on the other side: The federal Liberals were onside.

I was the lone opposition for some time. Certain members of city council came to join me in that fight, and in the end, there was no safe consumption site opened at the drop-in centre, which serves some of the people in Calgary who need our help the most.

The solution was never a solution. We need to get back to what the real solutions are. The real solution is, of course, to win at the source, and that source is the criminals who are moving this scourge upon our population: the drug pushers, organized crime and the people who are making money at the expense of society.

I propose that we move the bill eventually to committee and actually make those changes that would make the laws more strict for the people who are actually causing the death and destruction in our society and that would make sure we make them pay. Crime should not be a risk-free, profit venture. We need to end this as quickly as possible and make sure the criminals are accountable for their actions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister made a commitment to Canadians to deal with strengthening Canada's borders and to deal with immigration and the area of stabilization, in particular dealing with asylum seekers. Bill C-12 would do just that. It is a fulfillment, in good part, of a commitment that was made.

We are looking for co-operation from opposition members, because this is a minority government, in recognizing that this legislation is a significant move forward. I would suggest that this bill, combined with the commitment of having 1,000 new border control officers and 1,000 new RCMP personnel, would provide more security for Canadians by securing our borders and making our streets a safer place.

Would the member not agree that to get the legislation through, we need a high sense of co-operation? Are there any specific amendments the member would like to see with respect to Bill C-12?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is an important question.

As the member across the way will understand fully, we are co-operating very clearly on getting Bill C-12 to committee. Without the offensive parts of Bill C-2 in it, we are moving this bill forward. However, a number of issues only have half measures, and we need to make sure they fully address the problems faced by Canadians, not just those visited upon us by the new U.S. administration, which is pushing the government to act. We understand that and we are willing to get this bill to committee. Can we make changes to the drug-pushing laws? Can we make changes to the half measures, as opposed to the immigration asylum system, that are part of this bill?

We would love to see this bill roundly discussed and those amendments clearly made at committee. We will be working toward that end.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is also concerned about the fight against crime. We have a few ideas on the table. We have talked about removing the religious exemption for hate speech from the Criminal Code. We have also talked about a bill to ensure that trials for intimate partner crimes are not abandoned because of the Jordan decision.

The member spoke about street gangs. My colleague from Rivière-du-Nord has introduced a bill on that subject to facilitate the seizure of property belonging to individuals convicted of a gang-related offence.

Has the member looked at those bills? To what extent would he be willing to work with the Bloc Québécois on these important crime issues?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a good question.

Our job is to work with all other parties to improve the bills that are presented to us. That is our job. The member is talking about another bill. It is important to take a look at it and take it under consideration.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the Liberals want to talk all the time about the 1,000 RCMP officers they are going to be hiring. I submitted an Order Paper question to discover how many RCMP officers we are capable of training in one year. Currently, we are training 34 per year, and that could ramp up to 58 per year. Given that, it would take 20 years to get the 1,000 RCMP officers the Liberals claim they are hiring operational.

I am wondering if my hon. colleague has any comments about these bait-and-switch announcements the Liberal Party puts up all the time.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a very good question. I thank my colleague for arriving with the data. It is important because making announcements is something we have talked about. As I said in my speech, it is all talk and no action. It is the same with the Canadian Armed Forces and the notion of improving the Canadian Armed Forces and getting back to a base. The Liberals talk about increasing the numbers, yet recruitment does not show any increase in the numbers whatsoever. It is the same with police. The Liberals talk about having 1,000 more police and border officials at customs, yet the hiring practice does not seem to be happening at all.

The government seems to want to stack a whole bunch of bureaucrats in Ottawa at the thought level without any of the people who have to deliver the services to Canadians at the ground level. That is a mistake of the current government. We need more action and less talk.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise again in the House of Commons to represent the people of Peace River—Westlock.

Today, we are talking about Bill C-12, which sounds a lot like Bill C-2. Bill C-2 has been replaced by this bill. It was less than a month ago that I stood in this place and gave a speech on Bill C-2, during which I outlined a number of deficiencies that I saw with the bill. When I heard the Liberals would be reintroducing Bill C-2 as Bill C-12, I mentioned a number of things for consideration as possible fixes and the concerns I had with the bill. I was hopeful they had the opportunity to listen to my speech and would address a number of the concerns I had. Unfortunately, it does not look like the Liberals listened, once again.

I want to address a number of things that were asked of us. At the time, the member for Winnipeg North pointed out that Canada Post needed to be able to open people's mail without a warrant, but then he said it was with a warrant. Interestingly, that has now been dropped. I guess that was something the Liberals recognized as a problem. I talked about the banning of cash payments and donations over $10,000 and said we had concerns with that, and that piece has also been dropped. Kudos to the government on that. The pressure from Conservatives caused that to happen as well. Then we talked a lot about concerns regarding warrantless access to information. These are some of the most dangerous parts of Bill C-2 and they have been dropped, and I am pleased about that.

At the time that I gave my speech, about a month ago, I was reprimanded and chastised by the members opposite, who said that we should get out of the way and let the bill pass quickly. We saw right away that there were major concerns with Bill C-2. I remember, in particular, that I was challenged on allowing Canada Post to open people's mail, as if we needed this to fight the fentanyl being mailed out. I am interested in knowing if members opposite still hold those positions and why these things have been dropped. I can tell the minister that my constituents and those across the country thought this was a dangerous inclusion in the bill, and I am happy to see that it is gone.

We have always worked hard to fight for everyday Canadians, and one of the other areas of concern was about the $10,000 donations. We see that the government continually goes after the freedoms that Canadians enjoy in Canada, and we see its subtle and dogged attack on things like charitable organizations in this country, whether it is through the recommendations that came out of the finance committee last year about stripping religious organizations of their charitable status, the Canada summer jobs changes or the charitable attestation changes. Now we see a ban on cash donations. The Conservatives will always stand up for the charitable sector and the good work it does.

The bulk of my speech last month was about the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and the changes being made to it. I had not had the time to look at it in detail. As members know, when there are amendments to a piece of legislation in the abstract, it is often difficult to see what they are, but since then, I have had a chance to put them in their place in the act and see what kind of effect they would have. I was concerned at the time about the passport markings the Conservative government had put in place and the ability to revoke the passports of folks who are registered to the sex offender registry, and there has been zero action by the government over the last 10 years on either marking passports or revoking them.

I have been digging into this a bit, and I discovered that one of the issues is that the RCMP, which holds the registry, is unable to share this information with other levels of government, other organizations and other law enforcement agencies. The bill says that we could share it with other law enforcement agencies, but the challenge is that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is not law enforcement. The folks who issue passports are not law enforcement, so the bill is unclear. I do not think it will solve the problem of passport marking and the revocation of passports based on the registered sex offender list. This continues to be a problem.

I reached out to stakeholders who work in this space, like the folks from Ratanak International, based out of Vancouver, who flag this for me regularly. Registered sex offenders, convicted sex offenders, here in Canada often go abroad, likely to perpetrate more crimes. Countries around the world are pleading with Canada to alert them that a registered sex offender is coming or to prevent them from coming in the first place by withholding their passport.

I noted last time in debate the reality that a passport has, in the opening page, an endorsement of the individual. It endorses the individual and asks those viewing the passport to give the person free passage through their country. I am not convinced that folks in the sex offender registry are necessarily entitled to a passport. The law has been changed already so we can revoke these passports, but the Liberal government has failed to do this over the last number of years.

The RCMP was able to share with me how many notifications it had of sex offenders travelling. I see there is an update to the notification process. In 2022, the RCMP was notified 1,700 times. In 2023, it was notified 2,200 times. In 2024, it was notified 3,300 times. That was for registered sex offenders travelling abroad. However, the RCMP noted that it is unable to track the number of sex offenders who leave the country, given that if a sex offender does not register to do this, the RCMP does not know. We often know when they come back, as they seem to get flagged in the system then. As they come in, border security gets notified, but we do not know how many leave. Also, the RCMP was unable to ascertain how many times a registered sex offender failed to register when they left, because it does not track this.

For most of the last decade, countries, particularly the United States, have been begging and pleading with us to share this information with them. I think the bill would cover that. The changes the bill would make would allow our law enforcement to share with American law enforcement that a registered sex offender is travelling across the border. It is a particular annoyance for the Americans, and I understand that at a time when we are trying to mend relationships with the United States, rectifying this particular annoyance is the thing to do.

I would point out that I had flagged this for a number of years prior to this situation. I noted that, proactively, the United States has been sharing this information with us. In the first half of 2022, 165 Americans convicted of child sexual offences were allowed entry into Canada. We know this because the U.S. has a whole system to notify Canada that these folks are coming. Another question is whether we can stop them or refuse them entry, but that is another question altogether.

I look forward to seeing some of the questions I have about the bill clarified in committee. I also look forward to seeing if we need an amendment to fix the passport issue.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am actually encouraged. The member seems to have a deep amount of respect for the RCMP. He cited statistics and so forth, and he talked very positively about the RCMP.

I want to share with him something that appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press last week, on October 17. It references how the leader of the Conservative Party called the leadership of the RCMP “despicable”. This is something his leader said about the leadership of the RCMP. I agree with the member, who talked about how reliable and valuable the RCMP is in terms of providing service to Canadians. In fact, it is recognized worldwide as a wonderful organization from a legal, security and intelligence—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I have to give the member for Peace River—Westlock a chance to respond.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is mighty rich for the member opposite to be so concerned about the reputation of the RCMP now, given that his former leader, Mr. Trudeau, said the entire operation was systemically racist. In terms of the comments that my leader made, I particularly remember the commissioner of the RCMP being pressured by Justin Trudeau to release the names of the firearms that were used in Nova Scotia.

The actions of the leadership of the RCMP, I think, are indefensible in many instances.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I ask my question, I just want to say that I find it rich of the Liberals to add a day of debate on Bill C-12 and then not put up any speakers for the day. When it comes time to ask questions after a speech, we can debate the ideas that were presented, but we cannot deny the fact that the Conservatives are addressing the issue on the agenda. I find it especially deplorable that the Liberals are not taking advantage of an opportunity they created to discuss the bill before us, their bill, which is highly questionable at that.

In that regard, the previous version of the bill, Bill C-2, included a part 16 on the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. It authorized the collection of personal information for individuals suspected of funding terrorist or criminal activities. I understand that this was a special circumstance, but did my colleague think it was acceptable to include such a measure in the previous version of the bill?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I gave a thoughtful speech challenging some of the things that are right in the legislation, and the defence of the RCMP.

One other issue that I want to bring up in regard to the leadership of the RCMP is the case of Rhonda Blackmore. There are a lot of questions that concern me around this situation, with the treatment of Rhonda Blackmore and her removal as the head of F Division. There are questions about the leadership of the RCMP, and they continue to be unanswered. I look forward to seeing what responses come from there.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, on the subject of enforcement and crime in this country, I want to highlight and get the member's thoughts on another act of vandalism that we saw in Edmonton against a church. This was St. Clare's Parish, with some very offensive graffiti sprayed on the church. Stained glass windows were broken. I know that in this member's own riding, there have been instances of attacks on churches.

When it comes to our police officers, I know many are very frustrated by the fact that they try to enforce the law, yet the government has let them down by creating a framework in which criminals are repeatedly released on bail.

I wonder if the member wants to share his thoughts on these acts of vandalism against churches and how we can support police officers who want to enforce the law.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am heartbroken by the vandalism that has happened to churches across this country. Since 2021, arson or attempted arson has been committed at about 130 churches. This is another story of how it seems to be okay to vandalize churches across the country. I want to condemn that in every possible manner.

I look forward to a government that will defend the rights of religious people in this country.

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the people's House on behalf of the good men and women of Miramichi—Grand Lake. My constituents are honest people. They work hard; they follow the rules, and they expect their government to do the same. They believe the purpose of government is not to manage their lives but to protect their freedoms, the freedoms that their parents and grandparents fought to defend. That is why they see through the government's latest deception.

Bill C-12, the so-called strengthening Canada's immigration system and borders act, sounds like something impressive. However, as in most Liberal bills, the title and the truth are strangers. The bill does not strengthen our borders. It strengthens the hands of a tired government that has lost control of spending and is losing control of our streets. It does not fix the broken system; it covers the cracks with slogans. It does not make Canadians safer; it makes them easier to watch, easier to tax and easier to silence.

I come from a part of the country where words still matter. When a man gives his word, he keeps it. When he breaks the law, he goes to jail, not on vacation. The government has broken its word again and again to families who cannot afford a home, to victims who cannot find justice and to newcomers who did everything right and are still waiting years for an answer while illegal migrants go to the front of the line.

The same government that cannot guard our borders now wants to guard our bank accounts. Of course the Liberal government wants to guard our bank accounts: It has not tabled a budget in 18 months, and it has spent all of its own money. The same people who cannot stop fentanyl from coming in want access to Canadians' private data going out. The government calls that progress. It is the fox guarding the henhouse.

Let us talk about safety, because that is what is really at stake here. In my riding, we have seen the human cost of the Liberal government's failure in law and order. Families are shattered by addiction, my own included. No family is left untouched. In our communities, police are doing their best, but they have fewer and fewer tools to support them in doing their jobs and enforcing our laws.

Fentanyl is flowing across an open border faster than compassion can bury the dead, yet the same government that refuses to jail fentanyl dealers wants to lecture the rest of us about fairness and kindness. Compassion without courage is cowardice, and the government has made a policy of cowardice.

Catch-and-release bail remains the law of the land. Drug dealers and gun traffickers get house arrest. Meanwhile, law-abiding hunters and farmers are treated like criminals for owning tools their families have used for generations. This is not justice; it is a failure. My constituents know the Liberal logic has failed us for a decade now, but Conservatives are focused on real change and law that will protect law-abiding Canadians. That is why we are proposing a shift in the Criminal Code to reflect castle law, the notion that a person's home is their castle. We thought that might be easy to sell to the Prime Minister, given that he spent a good part of the last decade living in castles in Europe.

Canadians do not want fentanyl traffickers watching Netflix on their couch. They want them behind bars where they cannot poison children. While the government lets criminals walk free, it punishes the people who play by the rules. The government punishes the same people who plough the roads at 5:00 a.m., coach a hockey team at 7:00 a.m. and still find time to shovel a neighbour's step before work. Those are the people the Prime Minister looks down on. Those are the people he calls “fringe”. He is focused on telling them what kind of car they can drive, but those are the people who built this country and who continue to build it.

Let us talk about immigration. Conservatives believe that Canada is made stronger by those who come here legally, who work hard, who learn our languages, who share our values and love our flag. Immigration must be founded in law, not luck, and in fairness, not favouritism. Under the Liberal government, our system has become a revolving door for those who exploit it and a brick wall for those who respect it. There is no compassion in chaos. There is no justice in disorder. There is no sovereignty without security.

Bill C-12 does nothing to fix any of this. It is a window dressing for failure. It is one more photo op for a government that governs by headline and has not tabled a budget in 18 months. My constituents in Miramichi—Grand Lake expect the Liberal government to spend as much energy dealing with the public safety crisis happening in our communities as it spends on recognizing the terrorist state of Palestine half a world away.

The people of Miramichi—Grand Lake do not ask for much. They do not expect perfection. They expect honesty and hard work. They expect a government that protects their children before it protects its own image. They expect the Prime Minister to spend more time defending Canada's borders than defending his own reputation. Instead, they get a government that values surveillance instead of safety, mistaking kindness for weakness and patriotism for extremism.

The truth is, the bill would give more power to the bureaucrats and less protection to citizens. It would not stop the drug flow, the repeat offenders or the crime in our communities. It would just tighten Ottawa's grip on loosening Canada's borders.

Conservatives will not be fooled, nor will ordinary Canadians. We will fight for real security, the kind that guards both our borders and our freedoms. We will restore mandatory prison time for violent offenders and traffickers. We will end catch-and-release. We will secure our borders, protect our privacy and rebuild Canadians' faith in institutions that are supposed to serve them.

The only thing more dangerous than a government that refuses to defend its borders is a government that no longer believes Canada is worth defending. However, there is hope. There is another path, one led by a man who understands that freedom and order are not opposites but partners. This man is the Leader of the Opposition, and under his leadership, Canada will again have borders that are strong, streets that are safe and a government that minds its own business instead of that of others.

The people I represent are ready for that Canada, a Canada in which government protects what matters and leaves the rest to the good sense of the people. They are ready to trade slogans for strength, control for courage and Liberal wokeism for Conservative common sense, because they know the Liberal government has forgotten that freedom is not granted by politicians but is inherited by patriots.

Bill C-12 is not a solution; it is exactly the problem. The bill is just another example of a government that has lost its way. On behalf of the people of Miramichi—Grand Lake, on behalf of every Canadian who believes in borders, law and liberty, I will vote against the bill. Only Conservatives will restore a Canada that is once again strong, sovereign and free, but not free for the taking.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member spoke about Conservatives not being fooled and then went on to talk about how the Leader of the Opposition is the right person to take leadership in this country and move it in the right direction. However, the Leader of the Opposition clearly stated that he had no trust in the RCMP, and he basically insulted our protective services across this country, which do a lot of work to keep us safe and protect our borders.

How can we build a foundation of trust to build a stronger border service if the Conservatives do not even trust the men and women who are put in charge of protecting us?

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Mr. Speaker, this is rich coming from the other side. The Liberals had a prime minister who called the RCMP racist.

On this side of the floor, we respect all frontline workers, especially the police officers, men and women who go into danger every time they take a shift and get in their car. On this side of the floor, the Conservative Party respects all police officers and frontline workers across Canada.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague for speaking on Bill C-12, but unfortunately I get the feeling that both the Conservatives and the Liberals have forgotten that the public elected a minority government, in other words a government that should work diligently, with as little partisanship as possible. It should take into account the fact that there is no majority in the House and that we have a duty to talk to each other and work together.

Let me explain. The Conservatives supported a Liberal gag order on Bill C-5 last June. Even though it was a major bill, a gag order was nevertheless quickly imposed. Now the same thing is happening with Bill C-12, a bill that even the government acknowledged caused many people a great deal of concern in its previous version, Bill C-2. People in Shefford have reached out to me about this issue, particularly about envelopes being opened, because they are concerned about their freedom.

At this point, the Liberals are no longer taking part in the debate on this important bill, Bill C-12. Changes have been made, yet no other Liberals are speaking. What is my colleague's take on what Canadians must be thinking, since they gave this Parliament a minority government?

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for giving me the opportunity to speak to the bill further. There is a lot here. The government has chosen to make the bill about a number of unrelated matters: immigration, public safety, law enforcement and, most concerning, the increased surveillance of ordinary, law-abiding Canadians.

At home we have a saying: “If your dog barks at you, someone is feeding it.” Canadians are starting to wonder just exactly where the government's loyalty is. Is the government loyal to law-abiding taxpaying Canadians or fentanyl traffickers? Is it loyal to law-abiding taxpaying Canadians or repeat violent offenders? Is it loyal to law-abiding taxpaying Canadians or Hamas terrorists? Is the government loyal to law-abiding Canadians or illegal immigrants who arrive unannounced at our borders and claim asylum?

The mistakes are starting to pile up. Every chance it gets, the Liberal government picks criminals over Canadians, and they have had enough of the Liberal government.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find this line of questioning from the government quite interesting. I will quote a member of this chamber who, when speaking about the RCMP, said, “there is systemic racism within its ranks”. That was the member for Winnipeg North in September 2024.

Are the Liberals no longer convinced that the police are worthy of criticism now? I would be curious for my colleague to address that.

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is funny to listen to the Liberal government talk about wanting an apology from the leader of our party and how terrible it is for the RCMP when the former prime minister of Canada called the RCMP racist.

On this side of the floor, we always respect frontline workers and RCMP officers, especially in this day and age, with the bills the government has passed over the last 10 years, the trouble it has caused and the unsafe position it has put these police officers in. It is shameful.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House to speak. I will be speaking to Bill C-12, an act respecting certain measures relating to the security of Canada's borders and the integrity of the Canadian immigration system. What a laughable title from a government that has made such a mess of both our borders and our immigration system.

Let me talk about the mess the government has made of immigration. I want to share three short stories.

The first is the case of Mr. Khant from earlier this year. He was a permanent resident, originally a citizen of India. He pleaded guilty to attempting an indecent act. That is a bit of a legalistic way of saying that Mr. Khant tried to purchase sexual services from a minor. Unfortunately for Mr. Khant, the person he tried to purchase sexual services from was the Peel Regional Police human trafficking unit, as part of Project Juno. Rather than a jail sentence, Mr. Khant received a conditional discharge. Why would that be? In the words of the court, “Mr. Khant is a permanent resident seeking Canadian citizenship and professional licensing. A conviction would not only delay his citizenship by four years but could also prevent him from sponsoring his wife and obtaining his engineering licence.”

If people commit crimes in Canada and they are not Canadian citizens, they should no longer be in Canada.

Just over two weeks ago, there was the case of Mr. Sajeevan, an Indian citizen in Canada on a student visa. He was a roommate with several others, including several female roommates at a home in Barrie. His bedroom was in the basement beside the laundry room, which was shared by all the residents. The laundry room was beside the bathroom, which was also shared amongst the roommates.

Over a period of many months, Mr. Sajeevan used a peephole in the laundry room to spy on his female roommates in various states of undress. In July of this year, Mr. Sajeevan pleaded guilty to voyeurism, despite some initial agreement on sentencing and some very troubling victim impact statements from those who had been spied upon. The court went on to say, “The emotional and psychological harm caused is palpable...Mr. Sajeevan's offending has had a significant and enduring impact on his victims.” The court called it “more than curiosity; it was sustained predation”.

Despite all that and despite the serious nature of the crime and its effect on its victims, which the court acknowledged, the court went on to accept “serious collateral immigration consequences”. The result was a jail sentence of only five and a half months. Why? That is a bit of a strange number. Why five and a half months, when in fact the court said the proper sentence should be somewhere between six and 12 months?

It was because a jail sentence of six months would have made him inadmissible to Canada. In other words, he would have had to leave Canada if he were to receive a sentence of six months. However, we did not get that because the Liberals have so screwed up our immigration system.

Last is the case of Mr. Biron, a permanent resident from the Philippines. In 2021, over four years ago, he pleaded guilty to sexual assault against a minor and was sentenced to 20 months in prison. Beginning in 2022, he was advised that he could be inadmissible to Canada because of the serious nature of his crimes. For over four years, he has fought his deportation. How can it be that a non-citizen who has pleaded guilty to sexual assault against a minor is still in Canada after four years?

Bill C-12, despite being called a fix to our immigration system, does nothing for this. These are not isolated incidents, because we know that, despite the strong border rhetoric and the fix to immigration allegedly coming from the government, we have lost track of hundreds of serious criminals in this country. The cherry on the top of this is that the very minister responsible for our public safety is himself interceding on behalf of members of terrorist organizations.

Let me turn to the border and talk about what a mess the government has made of our borders. Fentanyl, of course, is still making its way into Canada. In fact, earlier this year, in the town of Georgina, in my riding of York—Durham, the York Regional Police broke up the largest drug trafficking ring in our town's history, under Project Madruga, through which 1400 grams of fentanyl were discovered. To put that into perspective, two milligrams is enough to kill a human adult. The York Regional Police said that they had never seen a drug trafficking problem or ring of this size or scope in Georgina.

The government promised during the election to hire 1,000 new border officers, but we have discovered that was just another empty Liberal promise. More than six months later, they have hired only a few dozen and, in fact, do not have a plan to hire any more. The CBSA says that it has turnover of between 600 and 700 officers a year, so even at normal speeds, it would take over five years to hire 1,000 new officers. The Minister of Public Safety himself admitted in an interview that it would take five years to hire 1,000 new officers, and that is not even talking about the backlog and vacancies the CBSA has. The Customs and Immigration Union says there is a 3,000-officer vacancy rate and shortage on the border force.

Last, I want to talk about civil liberties because, for all these messes, whether it is the mess on the border or the mess in our immigration system, for some reason, it seems the Liberals' response is always to attack our liberty. The monstrosity that is Bill C-2, from which Bill C-12 emerged, is just one more example of the pattern of the Liberal disregard for the freedoms and liberties of Canadians.

To be clear, I want to make a point that our freedoms, my freedoms and everyone's freedoms in Canada do not emanate from Parliament or princes. We have freedom and liberty, because we are made in God's image and are human beings endowed with those by our creator, but Bill C-2 remains before the House. It would allow law enforcement to snoop on Canadians without judicial authorization. It would allow Canada Post to open mail without a warrant. As a lawyer, I know that a warrant is a basic protection that we, as normal, average citizens, have fought for hundreds of years to maintain to protect us from the arbitrary power of the state.

Bill C-2 is not the only attack on liberties that Canadians have endured under this government. Bill C-8, which we have discussed, would give unprecedented power to the government to kick Canadians off the Internet, on “reasonable grounds” in respect of “any threat”. What is “any threat”? I have been here for just over six months, and I have already been accused several times, by members from the opposite side, of spreading misinformation because they do not like my opinion. Am I now a “threat” to the government, and will I be kicked off the Internet? There would be no warrant, no trial and no due process.

Another example is Bill C-9, which has more unprecedented power for the police to control and to police speech on the Internet. Over all, it seems like, of the legislation the Liberals have introduced thus far, the majority trample on our liberties as Canadians.

This is the Liberals' pattern. They might have a new leader and call themselves a new government, but they exhibit all of the same habits as they had before. Whether it is with Bill C-2, Bill C-8, Bill C-9 or now Bill C-12, it seems for every societal problem, there is another Liberal bill ready to erode our freedom, my freedom and the liberty of all Canadians.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, less than an hour ago, we had the Conservative member from Peace River—Westlock say, “The actions of the leadership of the RCMP are indefensible in many instances.” We have had the member for Bow River say “management weakness” in reference to the RCMP. We have the leader of the Conservative Party being quoted in the Winnipeg Free Press as saying, “the leadership of the RCMP is...despicable”.

I believe that Canadians need to have an apology, at the very least from the leader of the Conservative Party, and I am wondering if the member who just spoke echoes the same sentiments as the three individuals I just quoted. What are his feelings about the RCMP? Should his leader not apologize to Canadians?

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the member opposite to have some reflection on the members of his own caucus, who through the last several years, have called to defund our police. The member for Victoria, in 2020, posted on social media that the police should be defunded. The member for London West attended a “defund the police” rally in her riding.

Do not tell us about support for the police. In the last election, the police unions endorsed and supported the Conservatives, not the Liberals, because they know we support them. We are tough on crime, and the Liberals are not.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I share many of my colleague's concerns.

In Quebec, we have suffered and continue to suffer from a lack of border security due to the Liberal government's lax attitude and abdication of responsibility. Not to name names, but Roxham Road is where 150,000 people over five years have crossed irregularly through fields with the help of smuggling rings.

When we pointed this out and raised the fact that the safe third country agreement needed to be reviewed, the Liberal Party told us that it could not possibly do that because it would be too bureaucratic and that the agreement could not be changed. It is not right to take people into a country, handcuff them and leave them with the RCMP.

Given this egregious example of bungling, I would like my colleague to tell me what he now thinks of the Liberal government and its inaction.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for pointing out yet another example of the Liberals' mess in our immigration system. We have people coming across irregularly and illegally, and that is unacceptable. We cannot have a government that allows people to skip the line and break the rules over those who are trying to do things the right way and trying to come to Canada for the right reasons. It is totally unacceptable.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals keep trying to give themselves the power to watch, interfere with and generally babysit Canadians. What are your thoughts on the reasons for that?

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Before I recognize the member for York—Durham, I will remind members to go through the Chair. We do not use “you” or “your”.

The member for York—Durham.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the Liberal government, as we have seen over the last 10 years of it being in power, simply does not trust Canadians. The Liberals do not have faith in Canadians that they can run their own lives or decide what they want to read or watch online or on the Internet. Instead, for every societal problem the Liberals see, it is more government intervention, more government censorship and more government bureaucrats telling them how they should lead their life.

I am part of this party because we believe in Canadians. We believe Canadians are smart enough, wise enough and capable enough to run their own lives without any instruction from the Liberal government.

[Carlos Leitão, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I have one quick question.

For my information, could my esteemed colleague tell us whether Roxham Road is still open?

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our border is not secure. The Liberals have promised 1,000 border agents to protect our borders from illegal immigration, fentanyl and other criminal issues, including gun crimes. However, the Liberals' response is that maybe they will get to it in five years, that maybe in five years, they will hire the 1,000 new border officers.

No, our border is not secure.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when I heard about Bill C-12, I was hopeful. I was hopeful because I believed that the Liberals had listened to what both Canadians and Conservatives have been saying about Bill C-2. On the surface, it looked like there was some reason to hope. Bill C-12 is a repackaged and less offensive version of Bill C-2. It does remove the most egregious of the sweeping new powers that the government sought to grant itself and other government agencies. It no longer proposes to restrict Canadians' use of cash, and it no longer proposes to allow Canada Post to open Canadians' letters.

The Conservatives in the House gave voice to Canadians in speech after speech and forced the government to back down from a bill that would have violated Canadians' individual freedoms and privacy. We are prepared to do our job once again with Bill C-12 as the country's loyal official opposition. The Conservatives will examine every clause and every line of the bill to make sure the Liberals do not erode Canadians' rights.

After listening to the Prime Minister speak on television last night, on television instead of in the House, in front of an audience that even the Toronto Star described as being made up mostly of Liberal staffers, where he does not have to answer our questions and where he does not have to debate, I realized something else about Bill C-12: It might be better, but it would not do what the people of Nanaimo—Ladysmith so desperately need it to do. It would not do what British Columbians need it to do, and it would not do what grandmothers across the country who are raising their grandchildren because of fentanyl need it to do. It would not actually secure our borders. It would not actually treat those in our communities who are in the thrall of fentanyl. It would not actually bring safety back to our communities.

While the bill would fill a loophole by banning precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl, it fails to address the sentencing of those who traffic in it. There are still no mandatory prison sentences for fentanyl dealers. There are still no serious penalties for those who profit from destroying our lives and our communities. Bill C-12 would make some incremental improvements, but they are beyond insufficient. Criminals who traffic in fentanyl and firearms will continue to use our porous border to victimize Canadians, and they will continue to walk free soon after being arrested.

I will give the government credit where it is due. Bill C-12 is way better than Bill C-2, but let us be honest. These measures fall far short of what Canadians deserve.

The Liberals continue to permit drug consumption sites near schools and day cares. Last week, I had a call from a constituent about a proposed wet housing site that would back onto a kindergarten in my riding.

At the health committee, my Conservative colleagues called on the government to shut down fentanyl consumption sites near the places where kids learn and play. The Minister of Health refused to do so. She would not rule out approving more of these sites, even after acknowledging that they are now repositories for rampant fentanyl usage.

Last night, the Prime Minister looked Canadians in the eye and spoke yet again of the need for transformational change. He spoke of a rupture, of sacrifice, of responsible choice and of generational investments. Well, the addictions crisis is still in full bloom in Nanaimo, and the numbers are still staggering across Canada. There were more than 50,000 deaths in the last decade. There are more victims of the addictions crisis than there were Canadian deaths in the Second World War. Some 79% of accidental opioid deaths in 2024 involved fentanyl, up 40% since the Liberal government came into power.

The number of emergency department visits linked to fentanyl has more than doubled since 2018. Superlabs in Canada are now producing massive amounts of fentanyl. These are not small operations pressing pills in basements. These are industrial labs producing drugs on a massive scale.

In a country of 41 million people, it is simply disingenuous to argue that with the multiple drug busts in the 96 million dose range, these drugs are meant for domestic consumption. We have to face the reality that drugs are being produced in Canada for both domestic consumption and export. Bust after bust is described as the largest, most sophisticated illicit drug lab in the country. Police seize kilograms of fentanyl; kilograms of meth; illegal unregistered firearms, many of them loaded; silencers; explosives; and millions of dollars in cash.

This is what we are up against. Productivity in Canada is down, and we have a massive wage gap with the United States, except for criminals. Organized crime has set up an innovation sandbox in Canada that boggles the mind. The criminals know how to use AI, how to improve efficiencies and how to find synergies, and they are eating the government's lunch. Why? It is because the Liberal government, for all the Prime Minister's rhetoric, only seems willing to tinker around the margins with tiny pilot projects and token funding announcements.

Yesterday, we had another one of these, with the Liberals proudly announcing $4.3 million in funding, including $442,000 and change for the city of Nanaimo, to address these issues. I will take their money, but I will vote with my conscience. For those following Nanaimo's news, $442,000 is barely enough to build a fence around city hall. It is nowhere near enough to meet the need in a community that has been devastated by the addictions crisis. In Nanaimo, we need the government to spend less and invest more. We need hundreds of millions of dollars in investment for real solutions, not a few thousand dollars of spending for a press release.

If someone gets diagnosed with cancer, they get a full continuum of care: a diagnosis, a prognosis, surgery, chemo, radiation and follow-up for life. If someone gets diagnosed with addiction, they get Narcan. They might get patched up, if they are lucky, and then they get dropped off on the curb. This is not a system of care; it is abandonment. We need triage beds. We need detox beds. We need treatment spaces, recovery centres, sober-living houses and long-term maintenance programs. We need real treatment and recovery options so people can come home to their families, clean and healthy, and we needed it a decade ago.

The Prime Minister started his tenure in the House with lofty comments about Athens and Rome, but now he seems content to fiddle while Nanaimo burns. The Prime Minister is absolutely right. We need transformative change, but he is unwilling to deliver it.

I challenge the Prime Minister to come down from his ivory tower and engage with us in Nanaimo. I know he comes to my riding. He has family there, but I challenge him to spend less time jogging around beautiful Westwood Lake and more time talking with the people who deal with the addictions crisis on the front lines on our streets. He talks a good game about collaboration, but he does not collaborate. He talks about transformational change, but he is not even having the conversations that would allow him to make it. Bill C-12 is proof of that.

The Conservatives forced the Liberals to back down from the worst parts of Bill C-2, and we will continue to hold them to account on Bill C-12, because Canadians do not want more photo-ops, press releases or the seventh announcement of the 1,000 border officers the CBSA has never heard of and has not been given actual instructions to hire. They want real change. They want safe streets, healthy communities and a government that values their lives more than it fear losing an election.

Grandmothers want to stop raising their grandchildren. Addicts want hope, and communities want to stop living in fear. That is what the Conservatives are fighting for, and that is what a Conservative government would deliver.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, just months ago, there was a national election, and the Liberal Party, in particular the Prime Minister, received more votes than have ever been cast for the Liberal Party in the history of our party. A very solid mandate was delivered.

To the member's comments on “tiny” projects, there is $60 billion for five of them, one being a multi-billion dollar project in the province of B.C. They carry out through the Prairies, going all the way to the east.

This is a Prime Minister who not only has a vision, but is implementing that vision, and today is a good example. The election platform said to deal with border security. That is what Bill C-12 is all about. It said to deal with immigration stabilization. That is what Bill C-12 is all about. It is the Prime Minister who is making commitments while the leader of the Conservative Party is badmouthing the leadership of the RCMP.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite talks about the Liberal Party's receiving more votes in the last election than it has ever received before. Well, the Conservatives also received more votes in the election than we have ever received before.

When it comes to transformational change, the Prime Minister will make that change for his buddies, but there is no minister of mental health and addictions in the government, and people in my riding are dying because of it.

[Harb Gill, Conservative, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my friend. I know that grandmothers are raising children. I have been to funerals for folks who have died where I worked before as a police officer. There are mothers who carry naloxone in their purse to make sure they have enough to revive their child if they end up overdosing. That is not a Canada I want to live in.

Last week, the Secretary of State for Combatting Crime was on television, talking about hiring 1,000 CBSA officers, and she had no clue as to how many officers are retiring or leaving the job and how many are needed to replace them, aside from the 1,000 the Liberals are promising.

With whom does the buck stop? Conservatives and the Canadian public have had enough.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a good reminder that I have naloxone in my truck, in my car and in my house. We have it in our community offices. It is ubiquitous in our lives.

When it comes to the CBSA officers whom the government has promised more times than I can count, not only has it not hired those officers but there is also no money in the main estimates or the supplementary estimates (A) for those CBSA officers, and the departmental plans for the next three years show cutting both dollars and positions.

I have no idea where the buck stops, but something needs to change.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague's speech.

This bill discusses security at the border, as well as security in our communities. Recent media reports indicate that young people are increasingly turning to guns to protect themselves against criminal groups. That is concerning.

As usual, we come back to the issue of prevention and education. When criminal groups cross our borders and try to recruit vulnerable young people, young people who are susceptible to joining these groups, I think that we need to have a discussion that rises above partisanship.

What does the Conservative Party think about this phenomenon that is increasingly taking root in our communities?

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have two teenagers, so when it comes to young people and their future, it is on my mind as a parent, as it is on the minds of parents in our communities.

The current generation of youth is working so hard and facing so many obstacles. If we want to keep them out of gangs and out of trouble, we have to provide them with opportunity. That is one of the things that drives me.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak in the House, as always.

Today we are talking about Bill C-12. It is a fairly large omnibus bill that would amend many different acts, and it goes into many different areas of national policy. It is a second attempt by the government to put forward a bill that would address a number of problems that are well known and well identified, problems that Conservatives have identified for years. The government has finally acknowledged the existence of some of these problems and is trying to fix them.

The Liberals came out with Bill C-2, literally the second bill tabled in the current Parliament. It was a disaster; it fell very flat. Nobody wanted the bill. It contained some terrible measures, including a bizarre outright ban on certain cash transactions, as well as warrantless mail opening. Who was asking for this?

I suppose the government does deserve credit for listening to Conservatives, who had encouraged it through opposition to these measures to try again, so here we are with a new bill. It is a curious mix of ideas plagiarized from the Conservative Party in its previous platform, symbolic announcements that were not fulfilled with follow-through, and some steps for improvement on things that need to be done. I will talk about only a few of them, as it is a huge omnibus bill.

With respect to the border, yes, Conservatives support export tracking in our ports. This is something Conservatives have for years called for. We talked years ago about the crisis of auto theft in our country and the need to have the ability to scan container ships for the thousands of cars stolen from Canadian streets. Members may remember that the then minister of justice had his own ministerial car stolen at least twice, maybe even three times; I do not remember for sure. This is the level of problem we have that the Liberals are trying to solve. We would support that. In addition, with respect to drugs, we certainly support changing the classification of precursor chemicals to controlled substances.

However, I will point out that while the Liberals are taking credit for strengthening our border protection, something Conservatives had for years called for, the departmental plans for the CBSA and the RCMP do not support the announcement material that has come along with the bill, which we see if we take a cursory look at both the main estimates and the supplementary estimates. The supplementary estimates are there to make adjustments when changes in law, announcements or things like that come about, so the government can plan ahead.

The government's current plan for personnel with CBSA would be a net reduction of 600-odd personnel through to 2028. Once again, the Liberals have an A for announcement, but right now it looks like an F on follow-through, which has been the MO of the government for so long.

With respect to fentanyl, we heard some heart-rending testimony from members of the House on the scourge of opioid addiction, with people dying in our streets. There is also the trafficking of fentanyl. Yes, we agree with the changes the Liberals have made in the bill; they are important and supportable.

However, the government is not enforcing the laws we have already. People who traffic in drugs are not getting the full weight of Canadian law as it is. We have a bail not jail regime that the government deliberately brought in as a consequence of its bills, Bill C-5 and Bill C-75 from former Parliaments, and that would not be fixed by the bill before us.

With respect to changes that would be made to the Citizenship Act and to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, again, this is a problem long in the making. There are right now 290,000 asylum claims in the queue. By comparison, at the end of the years of the former Conservative government, there were about 10,000 claims. We have jumped from 10,000 people to 290,000 people in the queue for adjudication of asylum claims.

It is no surprise how we got there. We got there from the tweet heard around the world, the #WelcomeToCanada tweet that explicitly encouraged economic migrants to cross into Canada in order to then apply for asylum. The conflation of economic migrants with migrants seeking asylum in Canada as refugees has been completely intermeshed under the government. It is just a disaster for everyone. It is not fair for all the people in the queue to have this queue.

For the people in the queue, there is an industry now in which we have seen that human trafficking is a factor. People have made a business out of helping economic migrants, desperate people indeed, come to Canada from a safe third country, mostly the United States. We called upon the government repeatedly to make exactly the point that is contained in the bill, to apply the safe third country agreement to the entire land border. It is very late coming to this.

There is so much in the bill that it is hard to really do justice to any of it, but I want to spend most of the rest of my time on a very curious change that the bill would make. There would be an amendment to the Oceans Act that would place the Coast Guard under the ministry of defence, for budget purposes. It would still report, as an institution, to the Minister of Fisheries, the Minister of Transport and now also to the Minister of National Defence.

This change is an accounting trick the Liberals have done to try to fulfill the important obligation Canada has to NATO to increase its spending to at least the old agreed-to target and now to 5%. However, that would not change the capability of the Coast Guard; it would change reporting mechanisms and just move the budget from one column to another. Moving an expense budget from one column to another would not make Canada more safe and secure.

The ships would continue to be unarmed. They would continue to not meet NATO's own definition of a defence force. The closest things to armaments on these ships are shotguns used to scare off polar bears in Arctic patrol conditions, like firing a banger that is designed to make noise to scare away a predator. I am not even certain that I understand in what circumstance this would happen; perhaps it would be when going ashore, I guess, in the high Arctic.

That would not make Canada safer. It would not meet our actual NATO duty to defend our territory or to be deployable and help other countries. In this omnibus bill, the Liberals have snuck in an accounting trick just to help government members pat themselves on the back for increasing defence spending, when they would be doing nothing of the sort. All they would be doing is moving a number from one column to another.

The bill is a great example of the type of legislation we have become used to, where the government has a nice title and a nice announcement but no actual efficacy or improvement for national policy.

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

Mr. Speaker, this morning when I turned on the television, there were a bunch of Conservatives coming into the building, and everyone was moving so quickly. I thought, “Is a race going on, a marathon?” No, the Conservatives were trying to avoid the media, because their leader has doubled down on the statement that he does not have confidence in the RCMP's leadership. To me, that sends a very negative message. He called them “despicable”. That sends a very bad message to Canadians when it comes to border control.

Does the member opposite believe that the RCMP's leadership is despicable? Does he believe the RCMP plays a massive role in our protection when it comes to the border, yes or no?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is typical that the Liberals do not want to debate my speech.

This is pretty rich coming from a government that had plenty of time to call the RCMP racist as an institution and is now switching from the debate at hand.

I will take the next comment or question and leave it at that.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is just sad. The Liberals are adding another day of debate on their bill, Bill C‑12, but they are not rising. They are not giving speeches. They are just sitting there. When it is time to ask questions, theirs have nothing to do with the bill. I would ask the government to get serious so we know we are not doing our job for nothing.

I have a question for my colleague. I put this same question to his colleague earlier. Bill C‑2 contained some measures and parts that we found worthwhile and that could have been discussed in committee, but they were all removed from this version of Bill C‑12. For example, part 16 allowed access to the private information of a person suspected of using proceeds of crime to finance terrorist or criminal activities. We thought it was a worthwhile measure, one worth discussing.

Does my colleague agree that this type of measure could have been included in Bill C‑12 and that we could have examined it productively and constructively, contrary to what the Liberals are doing today?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member raised a very important problem. Canada has a very serious problem with terrorist financing and money laundering, and the government needs to do something about it.

Bill C-2 especially and Bill C-12 are very large bills. I did not get to that in my speech, but the Liberals made a mess of Bill C-2. Bill C-12 does not go all the way to fixing it and does not address the serious problem of terrorist financing and money laundering that my colleague mentioned.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to drill down on my colleague's comments on the Canadian Coast Guard. In Bill C-12, part 4 talks about making the Canadian Coast Guard the responsibility of another minister, but it never defines the minister as being the Minister of National Defence. The member referred to it as an “accounting trick” and talked about how the Canadian Coast Guard does not have any armaments, weapons systems or surveillance equipment to do the job defined under Bill C-12, which is surveillance and security patrols.

In the Oceans Act, which part 4 would amend, there is still a responsibility to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and to the Minister of Transportation. Does the member believe that having divided authorities will undermine the Coast Guard's ability to work as part of our security apparatus?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that is a fantastic question. I do not know the answer to it. It is a great question that the government will have to answer when this bill gets to committee.

I mentioned in my speech the reporting to the Minister of National Defence, but the member is correct that the bill does not specify that. That was my presumption. Who will be in charge of the Coast Guard when this is all done, if Bill C-12 passes unamended? It is not clear to me from what we can see so far. This will have to be studied at committee.

The member's point is so important: Nothing has changed. The ships are not suddenly armed or equipped with surveillance technology and equipment. They are the same ships, unarmed, and are currently purposed for civilian use. Changing and adding a new minister and moving the expense from one column to another will not make Canadians safer.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House, and today we are talking about Bill C-12.

For those who do not know what Bill C-12 is, it is the Liberal government's attempt at a do-over of Bill C-2, the border security bill. When Bill C-2 first came out, there was an outcry from the Conservative Party and civil liberties organizations across the country because of the numerous infringements of the Canadian Charter Rights and Freedoms. It would have been violated by Bill C-2, so the government was forced to take out some of these offensive violations.

Part 4 would allow Canada Post to open mail without a warrant. Part 11 would ban cash payments and donations over $10,000. Part 14 would allow warrantless access to Canadians' personal information on reasonable suspicion, which is a very low threshold. Part 15 could compel electronic service providers to re-engineer their platforms to help CSIS and the police access personal information, like a digital snoop.

Part 16 would allow the government to supply financial institutions with personal information if the info was useful for money laundering and terrorist financing purposes. Again, if there was a reasonable suspicion, they could get all of someone's financial information. What could possibly go wrong when the Liberal government gets someone's financial information? I think we learned that with the Emergencies Act when the government froze the bank accounts of Canadians. It is no wonder Canadians do not trust the government.

I am happy to see all of these violations of people's civil liberties were taken out in the do-over. That is the good news.

The bad news is that the government continues to go against people's charter rights and freedoms. We see a continual pattern of behaviour with the government. With Bill C-11, it tried to shut down people's freedom of speech. Bill C-18 tried to mess with the freedom of the press. The freedom of religion issue is constantly coming up, with the Liberals trying to remove charitable status from churches and the Canada summer jobs program. We have to get to the details of this bill to make sure no funny business has been snuck in at the last minute. It is clear the government continually wants to take away the freedoms of Canadians.

Some improvements could still be made to this bill, and I want to talk about a few of those. The first one is in part 1. Part 1 would amend the Customs Act to allow the CBSA to use facilities free of charge for enforcement and access to goods for export, as it does for imports. The dilemma for me is that with the size of the fentanyl issue, the crime issues and the lack of security at our borders, there is no limit on how long somebody's warehouse or space could be seized to use for this kind of enforcement. Of course, that would come at the expense of whoever owns a warehouse or storage space.

In border towns like Sarnia, there is not always a lot of space available at the border, so that could be even more far-reaching. The same is true for Windsor and a number of the other border crossings we have. I think some limits should be put on part 1 to make sure we do not unduly burden private businesses.

Second, let us talk about fentanyl. Fentanyl is a huge issue in this country. About 50,000 people have died of overdoses. The RCMP and CSIS have indicated that there are 400 fentanyl superlabs. I do not know whether they are being shut down, but Justin Trudeau said a very small portion of our fentanyl goes to the States. The reality is we really do not know, because shipping containers coming in from China are not being scanned and are going through the port of Vancouver and down to Seattle.

The precursors of fentanyl are not controlled or tracked. We do not know where they are going, so the people synthesizing fentanyl in these 400 superlabs are getting those chemicals from somewhere. One thing I like about the bill is that it adds some controls to traceability so we would know where those chemicals are coming in, where they are going and who is buying them. That would be helpful to the police.

I think we should start doing what other ports in the world do, which is scan all the shipping containers. This is very important not just on the fentanyl issue but on the issue of people stealing cars. We definitely need an upgrade in our scanning capabilities.

One of the difficulties I have with putting laws in place in this country is the lack of enforcement of the rule of law. It is fundamental to our democracy, but the law is not really being enforced. We have people committing crimes in the country who are let out because the Liberals put in place Bill C-5 and Bill C-75. Bill C-75 says that we have to give the least restrictive punishment, which is really bail or a fine, at the earliest opportunity, which is right away. We have people trafficking fentanyl or creating it in these labs, and even if they get arrested, they are back out on bail. Bill C-5 lets them have house arrest. How convenient is that for drug trafficking? They have to stay home, but people can stop by.

We need better enforcement of the law, because we know the Liberals are going to create more laws like Bill C-9, for example, which is supposed to address the rise in hate crimes. There are already laws in this country that could help in that regard. There were 113 Christian churches that burned to the ground. There is a law against arson. It should be enforced. Illegally blocking the streets is against the law, but the police are not enforcing it. Death cries to Canadians and various religions are hate speech. They are against the law. Again, it is about enforcement. As for shooting up schools, stealing cars, home invasions and extortions, we already have laws on the books for these things, but if we are not going to enforce them, we are not going to cure the problem. That is exactly the problem with introducing this border security bill. If there is no enforcement of any of the things in it, then it is absolutely meaningless.

There are immigration measures in the bill, and we need to take action on immigration because it is out of control. Most Canadians would agree with that. We need immigration to build houses and for the nation-building projects we want. We have an aging population. We need more PSWs, nurses and doctors than can graduate from the educational institutions in Canada. We need people to come here and help build the country. I love the idea from our leader of the blue seal program, to take the 50,000 doctors and nurses who already live in Canada and get them accredited so they can help out. It is definitely a great idea.

For the last century, people have come here to work and to help build the country, and we want to continue that. What we do not need is more freeloaders showing up to claim asylum and have the Canadian taxpayer fork out $3,000 to $4,000 a month to put them up in hotels in Niagara Falls. That is more money than we give the seniors who built the country. It is more money than we give to Canadians living with a disability.

Then we see that the majority of these claims, after two or three years of putting these people up, are not eligible after we have spent a huge amount of the taxpayers' money. There are 300,000 of these individuals in the backlog. That is $15 billion a year taken out of the pockets of Canadian taxpayers for people we did not invite here. I think moving the IRCC office to the Toronto Pearson, Montreal and Vancouver airports to hear their claims right on the spot would be good. Then if they are not eligible, the cost of a plane ticket is a lot less than the cost of putting somebody up for three years.

At the same time, we need to reintroduce the fair and compassionate immigration system we had when the Conservatives were in charge, which did security checks so that we were not letting people into the country who were going to cause the kinds of crime and trouble we are sometimes seeing.

I think the immigration measures in the bill will help out. I do not think they go far enough. My colleague from Calgary Nose Hill has done a great job of defining what ought to be done to fix the immigration system we have. I encourage anyone who does not follow her to listen to what she has to say on that subject.

I want to talk a bit about making the border more secure. The Liberals have announced that they are going to hire 1,000 CBSA agents. The announcement was made months ago and nobody has been hired. We hear now that it might be done within five years. That is not the kind of response we need to get security in the budget.

With that, I will take questions.

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

Mr. Speaker, we are here talking about how to make Canada, our country, safer. We are talking about issues that matter to Canadians. Canadians are watching. There are many people in this room watching today, and people are watching online. It is important for MPs to set a tone in the House to ensure that, at the end of the day, we move forward in the right direction.

The Leader of the Opposition has clearly said that he thinks the RCMP is “despicable”. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition will not even do a security background check to ensure he can have access to certain information.

Do you think the Leader of the Opposition should get the background check and that he should stop calling our top officers despicable?

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I do not think anything. I will let the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong explain what she thinks.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether the member follows me on Facebook or Twitter, but if he does, he might want to review one of the excellent speeches I gave when the green slush fund was before the House and the Liberals were saying that there needed to be separation between the government and the RCMP. I fully agreed, and I gave a number of examples in which there were infringements of the Criminal Code. One of them was when Justin Trudeau contravened section 119(1) of the Criminal Code, which says that a person who holds public office cannot take an action that benefits themselves or their family. In the WE Charity scandal, he gave the charity $900 million, which benefited his wife, his brother and his mother.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed my colleague's speech. We agree on many things.

I would like her to talk about a subject that has not really been broached today, and that is the issue of foreign students trying to exploit loopholes to apply for asylum.

In Quebec, there were 340 such cases in 2020. How many were there in 2024? There were 5,535, an increase of over 1,500%.

When we questioned the Minister of Immigration, she was unable to give us an answer. She read out data from a sheet of paper. That is not reassuring. The government is irresponsible. It is not taking responsibility, and it is incapable of reassuring the universities. It wants them to do the policing, but that is not their role.

I would like my colleague to tell me whether she agrees that the government needs to finally take responsibility for the situation and send a message to reassure the universities about their image, as well as their international credibility.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is no oversight on the part of the government or the Minister of Immigration. I think there are four million students who are supposed to leave by December, but the government has no idea where they are. That is unacceptable.

We need foreign students, because the population is aging and we need a lot of doctors and nurses.

We absolutely need much more oversight.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on Bill Blair, we all know what Prime Minister Trudeau has—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I need to interrupt the member. He cannot use the first name or the last name of a member of the House of Commons. I will let the member start again.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are all aware of a former prime minister saying that the RCMP is systematically racist. He also tried to take away tools from the RCMP and said that it required cultural change. Bill Blair also said—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I need to interrupt the member again. That particular member is still a member of the House of Commons, and a member cannot use the first name, last name or full name of a member of the House of Commons. I invite the member to finish, and I will allow the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong to respond.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize. According to an article, a former minister said that “Discrimination within Canada's criminal justice system is abhorrent, unacceptable and [distasteful] and related police misconduct is indefensible”. Why does my colleague think the Liberals are so focused on a statement by our leader , which was taken out of context, while they are ignoring everybody else?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is because the Liberals have nothing else to offer. They are looking for a distraction because they have not delivered. They are going to build, build, build at paces we have never seen. Well, I have never seen negative acceleration, but I am seeing it now.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this House on behalf of the good people of Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner.

Today, I am going to be discussing Bill C-12. This is the Liberals' second attempt at addressing our broken border and immigration system. It was introduced in the House recently, thanks to my Conservative colleagues' work and my work in forcing the Liberals to back down on their first border bill, Bill C-2, because of its serious violations regarding the freedom and privacy of Canadians.

As the official opposition, it is our job to scrutinize the government and oppose legislation when it is against the best interest of Canadians. The safety and security of Canadians is non-negotiable, and Conservatives have been clear: Canadians should not have to choose between having a secure border and having their civil liberties protected.

Given the scope and complexity of the bill, Conservatives proposed that Bill C-2 be split into two separate pieces of legislation, with one that is narrowly confined to border and immigration measures, to ensure that all aspects of the legislation receive proper scrutiny. I am pleased that, along with our other opposition members, we were able to successfully force the Liberals to table the new bill, which we will continue to examine thoroughly to ensure that the bill does not include any measures that would breach law-abiding Canadians' privacy rights. Bill C-12 may be a starting point, but I believe it requires significant amendments and vigorous study at committee.

There is no doubt that tougher and smarter measures regarding borders and immigration are desperately needed to keep Canadians safe. While I am happy that the Liberals are willing to work with the opposition parties to address Canada's border security and immigration issues, it is important to note that much of the urgency surrounding the legislation is a direct result of 10 years of Liberal mismanagement. The Liberals have failed to take our borders seriously, resulting in increased gun smuggling, driving up violent crime; an immigration system that is completely out of control; a fentanyl crisis; and an increase in human trafficking. These are all destroying the lives of Canadians.

While Bill C-12 contains positive provisions to streamline investigations and improve information sharing, it falls short in addressing some of the pressing public safety concerns facing Canadians. The Liberals' failure to secure our border and crack down on organized crime has fuelled a fentanyl crisis and put countless lives at risk. The Liberals' reckless drug legalization experiment, combined with their soft-on-crime bill, Bill C-5, has fuelled Canada's deadly drug crisis. Bill C-5 scrapped mandatory jail for fentanyl production and trafficking, for example.

Last fall, police dismantled the largest and most sophisticated drug lab in Canadian history, capable of producing multiple kilograms of fentanyl each week, along with caches of loaded firearms, explosives and half a million dollars in cash. Fentanyl is not just a drug problem; it is a public safety and national security risk and a crisis fuelled by organized crime and enabled by weak borders.

Part 2 of Bill C-12, as in Bill C-2, would amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to fill a loophole in the act by banning precursor chemicals for fentanyl. This is an important first step, but the Liberals are addressing only a small part of the issue and doing too little, too late. Bill C-2 is silent on the tools police and prosecutors actually need to address this crisis. The Liberals' catch-and-release policies are alive and well for those who traffic in fentanyl and firearms. The principle of restraint in Bill C-75 directs the courts to release violent offenders on bail at the earliest opportunity, under the least onerous restrictions. The Liberals' persistence in allowing house arrest for serious offences, which include offences involving firearms, if members can believe it, continues to endanger lives.

It is not just the fentanyl crisis the Liberals are playing catch-up on. Their failure to get serious on our border has allowed for an increase in illegal gun smuggling, driving organized crime in Canada. Gun crime has risen 130% since the Liberals took office. In July, the Prime Minister himself even said, “The vast majority of firearms, illegal firearms, firearms used in crime, come across our border.”

According to the Toronto Police Service, 88% of guns used in crimes seized by the Toronto Police Service in 2024 were traced back to the United States, including 94% of the firearms that were seized. That does not sound like a very secure border to me and, unfortunately, Bill C-12 does little to address the issue.

Instead of investing in border security, the public safety minister has doubled down on the Liberals' failed gun confiscation program, which he himself admitted is a waste of money that will do nothing to keep Canadians safe. The $742 million the Liberals say they intend to spend on gun confiscation could have gone to hiring 5,000 more police officers or CBSA officers or purchasing 300 port scanners. Instead of including measures in Bill C-12 to ensure border officials have the proper resources needed to secure the border, the Liberals remain committed to targeting law-abiding hunters and firearms owners.

Having a secure border also means having a strong, robust immigration system that serves the needs of Canadians and aligns with our national interests. Parts of Bill C-12 attempt to address some of the challenges our immigration system faces after 10 years of Liberal mismanagement. Unfortunately, I am not confident that these measures by themselves will fix our broken system, which is clearly collapsing under the weight of Liberal mismanagement.

This week, the CBC reported that processing times for Canadian immigration applications have reached unprecedented lengths. Wait times, for example, for permanent resident applications are up to nine years for the caregiver pathway, up to 19 years for the agri-food stream and up to 35 years for entrepreneurs under the start-up visa stream. Even worse than that, if anyone can imagine, the Liberals have lost track of hundreds and hundreds of foreigners in this country who have criminal records and are due to be deported. Guess what, they have gone missing.

This backlog of applications, lack of accountability and inconsistent enforcement all stem from a government that has failed to plan, failed to listen and failed to act. Now, with Bill C-12, the Liberals are scrambling to fix the very system they dismantled, but instead of thoughtful reform, they are reaching out for sweeping powers and vague regulations that permit activities rather than legislating requirements for change.

Conservatives believe in responsible immigration in appropriate numbers to keep up with our health care, housing and job markets. We support measures that streamline processing, reduce backlogs and help newcomers integrate successfully, but we oppose policies that put power in the hands of ministers without proper oversight. Canada's immigration system needs complete, wholesale changes to ensure a secure border and prosperous nation, but those changes are nowhere to be found in C-12.

Like many Canadians, Conservatives want safe communities, secure borders and an immigration system that works for our country, not one that is collapsing under the weight of the Liberal government. The safety and security of Canadians is non-negotiable and, as the official opposition, Conservatives remain committed to implementing the tougher, smarter measures that are needed to keep Canadians safe. We are ready to support provisions in the bill that protect our national security and secure our borders while proposing amendments that would improve the bill and opposing measures that go against the best interest of Canadians.

Bill C-12 introduces significant changes that require in-depth study to ensure the problems are addressed appropriately. At committee, Conservatives will scrutinize, debate and propose amendments to Bill C-12 and work together to ensure it achieves its stated goal of improving Canada's public safety and national security. Conservatives remain committed to securing our borders, strengthening our immigration system and cracking down on crime and chaos in our streets.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have deep respect for the member opposite in being a former law enforcement officer.

We have already had a great deal of discussion about the RCMP today. This is a statement that was made by the member's colleague from Peace River—Westlock. He said, “The actions of the leadership of the RCMP, I think, are indefensible in many instances.” Another one of his colleagues from Bow River referred to “management weaknesses”. The leader of the Conservative Party said, as reported in the Winnipeg Free Press, that “the leadership of the RCMP is ‘despicable’”.

What are the member's feelings about the RCMP? Could some of his colleagues have gone too far in assessing the management of—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I have to give the member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner a chance to respond.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have many good friends and former colleagues who were or are members of the RCMP. Even now, I ask people from the force whom I meet in different communities about how things are going. They tell me very clearly that there is a disconnect between upper management and them. There are operational issues that are not being addressed by the RCMP leadership. That disappoints me.

The RCMP no longer has the stellar reputation it once had. That concerns me as well. It is our national police service and has great responsibilities on national security, defence and those types of investigations. It is important that it be given the opportunity—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Shefford.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I need some clarification. I am trying to understand what is going on.

On the one hand, the Liberals introduced a bill, Bill C-12, to address concerns that citizens, including those in my riding of Shefford, had about Bill C-2. On the other hand, the Liberals are not speaking today. To add insult to injury, as my distinguished colleague from Drummond so aptly pointed out, they are asking questions that do not really help us understand the changes that were made from Bill C-2 to Bill C-12.

We know that mail searches have been abolished because they are an invasion of privacy, and that restrictions on donations of $10,000 have been dropped, as has the collection of private data, but can my colleague help me understand and clarify this?

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that is a great question, and I have similar questions. I am puzzled by the government's bringing the bill forward and not putting up any speakers to defend it nor to speak about how they want to improve the bill or how they want to work with the opposition to improve the bill.

My Bloc colleague asked a question that I cannot answer. The government would have to answer why it is not putting up people to speak to its own bill. I do not know.

[Harb Gill, Conservative, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a little over two years ago, I was involved in an operation, an investigation, with members of the RCMP and the CBSA. We seized over 300 kilos of meth at the Ambassador Bridge. That meth was traced back to a gentleman in Toronto who was found to have another 150 kilos of cocaine, large sums of cash and firearms. He pleaded guilty. There was a joint submission made by the Crown and the defence lawyer for the number of years to be spent in prison, but the man requested that he receive a six-month reprieve so he could wait until his child born before starting his prison sentence. That is outrageous in my opinion.

I would like to ask the member, who has also served in a leadership position in policing, what that sort of thing does to the morale of police officers, CBSA officers and RCMP officers who are involved on the front lines.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, what has happened in this country over the last 10 years is that the public trust in our entire justice system has waned.

Examples like this, where judges make decisions that might be considered inappropriate, or where the laws of the government have undermined the great work of law enforcement across this country, certainly cause people to ask, “What is the use?” and to say that we need a change in government to fix it.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise and to speak to Bill C-12.

The bill is effectively the second attempt of the government at getting serious when it comes to public safety and dealing with our borders and with drugs. It is frustrating, because Bill C-2 was a giant omnibus bill that the government put forward. The Liberals effectively said, “Don't worry. Just trust us. It's fine”, within days of the bill's coming out, and it was the second piece of legislation the government put forward. It was one of its showcase pieces in the last session. However, civil liberty groups and Canadians came out from coast to coast to coast talking about the massive overreach of Bill C-2.

Bill C-12 is effectively part of the Liberals' listening. It is an improvement on Bill C-2, because it was very clear that Bill C-2 was an intensely flawed bill that would have allowed Canada Post to open people's mail without a warrant, which would have been an overreach on Canadian civil liberties and the freedom of individuals, which is something Canadians hold dear.

Bill C-2 would have gone so far above and beyond, such as banning things like cash payments for anything more than $10,000. The legislation might not have actually been dealt with for a long time, and with where inflation is, it could have had massive impacts on the way many Canadians choose to do a number of things.

I am happy to see that some of those most troubling elements have in fact been removed. However, one thing we know is that crime is completely out of control in our country. My Conservative colleagues and I hear about it every single day from people in our ridings and from people we run into on the streets here in Ottawa or back home.

One of the most common pieces I hear about in my riding of Fort McMurray—Cold Lake is the absolute frustration with the catch-and-release policies and our broken bail system. We all hear these stories; I do not think the Liberals are immune. Every single day there are stories of people out on bail who are charged with heinous crimes. In fact earlier this week, an Amber Alert went out for someone suspected of taking a young child. That person was out on bail and, unfortunately, actually killed his ex-wife.

These are the kinds of realities Canadians are facing. People who have been charged and convicted for horrible crimes, violent offences and repeated violent offences, are getting out on bail time and time again.

It is so clear that more needs to happen to protect our communities from the ever-growing crime crisis. This is one of the reasons my Conservative colleague, the member for Oxford, introduced Bill C-242, the jail not bail act: to strengthen bail laws and put public safety first once again in Canada. Basically, his legislation would reverse the Liberal principle of restraint that was brought in with Bill C-75, strengthen bail laws for serious repeat offenders and ensure that criminals with a history of violent crime would no longer automatically be released back into their community. This is one of the big challenges.

The soft-on-crime Liberals for the last 10 years have absolutely destroyed public safety in our country, leaving more and more Canadians unsafe or feeling unsafe. Frankly, feeling unsafe is a problem. Whether someone does or does not break into a person's house at night, if the person is afraid that it is going to happen because it has happened to their neighbours and to other people around them, then that undermines the social fabric we have enjoyed in Canada.

One of the big frustrations we have as well is that we cannot trust the Liberals to do what they say they are going to do. They said they were going to hire more RCMP officers. They have broken their promise to hire 1,000 more CBSA officers. After that, the Minister of Public Safety was asked point-blank, and he denied any accountability, stating, “I’m not responsible for the hiring.” Well, there is a thing called ministerial responsibility, but the Liberals do not abide by any of that at all; that has become very clear.

We have had a decade of reckless, soft-on-crime policies that make more Canadians feel unsafe. Violent crime has increased by 55%, and gun crime is up 130%. Extortion is up 330% across Canada; that is wild. The Liberals are more focused on a gun grab boondoggle that is going to cost Canadians, on a conservative estimate, $742 million and that the minister himself admits is a waste of money and resources and is being pursued purely for political reasons.

We did some research, and one of the interesting pieces is that $142 million could pay for 5,000 RCMP officers. It could pay for 300 port scanners or 37,000 addiction treatment spaces, something that is near and dear to my heart, but instead the Liberals are putting it towards another boondoggle, going after law-abiding gun owners rather than dealing with the real issue, which is that we have a porous border.

One of the big reasons we have a porous border is that we have absolute mismanagement of federal ports by the Liberal government. This mismanagement of our federal ports has turned them into parking lots for stolen cars that then go on to disappear overseas. What we also end up with are drugs and illegal guns coming into our country. What the Conservatives have been calling for is more scanners at the ports, because criminals know those ports are a hot bed for crime.

In fact, according to Peel detective Mark Haywood, the CBSA checks “less than one per cent of containers” leaving this country. Criminals know this, so illegal drugs and illegal guns flood into our country, and stolen cars flood out, further eroding public safety in Canada. On top of this piece that is very troubling about the border, the fire has been fuelled further by a decade of horrific Liberal drug policy and drug experiments.

There has been a dangerous and deadly drug legalization pilot project in British Columbia that removed tools from the RCMP, making our streets completely unsafe, leaving communities to suffer and providing no support to people who are struggling with addiction in this country. There was also the Liberal-NDP so-called safe supply experiment, which gave people with addictions large quantities of government-funded drugs, of hydromorphone and other dangerous narcotics, without any guardrails or pathways to recovery, which fuelled the addiction crisis in our country because the drugs were then being resold in the streets and online, oftentimes ending up in the hands of teenagers who then started their journey into addiction.

These are just two examples of ways the Liberals have made things worse.

We know that fentanyl is 100 times more potent than heroin; as little as two milligrams can kill a person. Through the lost Liberal decade, Canada has become a fentanyl manufacturing hub. Breaking Bad-style superlabs are popping up right across the country. Mass fentanyl production is mass murder, but Liberal laws let the monsters who traffic deadly drugs walk free every single day.

One of the good things I will point out that the legislation brought is that the Liberals are finally taking some action to ban the precursors that allow monsters to produce fentanyl. Chemical precursors are how they make these drugs, so the bill would finally get serious on that, allowing precursors to be banned. This would go a very long way in helping shut them down, but there would still be no mandatory prison time for fentanyl traffickers. There would still be no new mandatory prison time for gangsters who use guns to commit crimes, despite Liberal campaigns against them and against legal gun owners.

What we will do, from this side, is continue holding the government accountable. We look forward to the bill's going to committee so we can further study it. Conservatives will continue to stand up for Canadian individuals' freedoms and privacy.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, we have had many hours of debate on the issue, and one of the things coming out of the issue is something that has been talked about today.

I would like the member to listen to a quote from one of her own Conservative colleagues, the member for Peace River—Westlock: “The actions of the leadership of the RCMP are indefensible in many instances.” Another colleague, the member for Bow River, said, “management weaknesses” when referring to the RCMP. The member's own leader said that the leadership of the RCMP is “despicable”. What is despicable is how the Conservative Party is putting a black mark on the RCMP as an institution. The RCMP is recognized worldwide as a positive thing.

Can the member provide her thoughts on this issue? Does she—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

The hon. member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake has the floor.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Mr. Speaker, do members know what is totally despicable? It is that after 10 years of the Liberals, we continue to see crime increase in this country. After 10 years of the Liberals, we continue to see Breaking Bad-style superlabs opening up from coast to coast to coast. We continue to see the Liberals call to defund the police, like the member of Parliament for Victoria, who called for them to be defunded.

Good news is on the horizon. The Conservatives are going to hold the Liberals accountable for their mismanagement. We will continue to stand up for Canadians' freedoms and privacy.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on her speech.

Unlike the Liberals, I have been listening to my Conservative colleagues' speeches all day. I find that they offer interesting perspectives. At the very least, they are contributing to the debate that the Liberals have decided to prolong today. That is to their credit, because we can sometimes engage in discussions with them without necessarily always agreeing with them.

Earlier, I heard my colleague from Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong talk about the fact that some aspects of Bill C‑2 were not included in Bill C‑12. She was referring in particular to provisions making it possible to search mail or to access personal information, for example.

I would like to know whether my Conservative colleague agrees that there might have been a way to study some of these provisions in committee. They may have been extreme in the first version, but they could have been useful, particularly in the fight against terrorism and serious crime.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague makes a very important point. We are not hearing the Liberals debate this bill, and that would be a very important question to ask them. It is really unfortunate that they do not want to talk about the legislation that is before us today.

I think that it is really necessary to address these issues in committee, and I hope that we will have the opportunity to hear from witnesses and experts on the subject in order to analyze the provisions of the bill and ensure that the rights and freedoms of Canadians are respected.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it has been rather enjoyable sitting in the chamber today. If we did not hear one of the Liberal member's questions, we can be assured they will ask it again five minutes later, maybe changing a word here or there. I enjoy how the member for Winnipeg North, in particular, continues to talk about the RCMP.

I want to ask my colleague from northern Alberta if she agrees with the president of the RCMP union, Brian Sauvé, who said the Liberal government's gun grab will be “ineffective” at reducing gun violence. Would she agree with the RCMP, which has been very vocal in criticizing the government's approach to firearms regulations?

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raised a very important point. We are blessed to have amazing RCMP members, who serve us from coast to coast to coast. They serve me in my riding of Fort McMurray—Cold Lake. They are the police of jurisdiction in my home community.

The police union has, and rightly so, called out that the Liberal gun grab will not actually have an impact. That is concerning. It is a boondoggle. It is $742 million, at a very conservative estimate, and is not going to improve public safety. That is not okay.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I always take pleasure rising in this House to talk about government legislation, or any matter for that matter, and I would like to take some time today, in the context of the bill we are debating, Bill C-12, to talk about some of the stuff I have heard.

I have been involved in the debate a couple of times this week, and I must say that some of the stuff I have been hearing coming from the Conservatives in particular is quite alarming.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, they are laughing, so maybe I will put that into context by providing some of what I heard.

To the member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, who just asked a question, yes, we have been talking about the RCMP and asking questions about the RCMP, and I apologize if that makes the member uncomfortable, but the reality is that there are questions to be answered on this topic. There are questions to be answered when it comes to the manner in which we are seeing the Leader of the Opposition and, throughout this debate, other members of the Conservative Party, which I would like to get to, talk about the RCMP.

They are saying things that I think are quite problematic and are emblematic of what we are seeing happen in the States. I know some members in this House take pride in that, probably some of the members I will reference in a couple of moments when I note what I have heard them say here, but I want to start with what I heard moments ago from the member for Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee. This was actually in a question he posed, so he initiated the question on it. He said that the Leader of the Opposition's comments in the podcast he was on were “taken out of context”.

Let me set the context by telling everybody exactly what the Leader of the Opposition said. He said, “Many of the scandals of the Trudeau era should have involved jail time.... If the RCMP had been doing its job and not covering up for him”—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I have to interrupt the chief government whip.

I have a point of order from the member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe it is Bill C-12, government legislation, that is supposed to be debated. The chief government whip may be mistaking the chamber for his Twitter account, but I am not sure—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

That is a matter of debate. There is wide latitude for members to share their thoughts.

I invite the chief government whip to resume.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know this is difficult for the member from Elgin to listen to, and I know he is new here, but I am talking about what was said in the House during this debate. If he is somehow suggesting that I should not be able to respond to some of the things I have heard in this debate, that would be an infringement upon my privilege, quite frankly.

For the member's benefit, I will start from the beginning. This is what the Leader of the Opposition said:

Many of the scandals of the Trudeau era should have involved jail time.... If the RCMP had been doing its job and not covering up for him, then he would have been criminally charged.... These would normally have led to criminal charges, but of course the RCMP covered it all up, and the leadership of the RCMP is frankly—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I have to interrupt the chief government whip one more time.

I have a point of order from the member for Peace River—Westlock.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize that our hon. colleague wants to talk about this, but the debate today is about Bill C-12, and I wish he would bring it back to relevance. I note that it is the Liberals who—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I have to interrupt the member.

Members have wide latitude in debating any piece of legislation, and I am sure the chief government whip knows the rules of what is germane to debate.

I will let the chief government whip resume.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on the subject noted by the member for Peace River—Westlock, I will tell members what he said in this debate. The member, who just stood on a point of order, said, “The actions of the leadership of the RCMP...are indefensible in many instances.” He said that in this debate on the issue of Bill C-12, so for him to stand—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I have another point of order, from the member for Souris—Moose Mountain.

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, quite some time ago, the member said “in conclusion”, and I would not want him to unintentionally mislead the House.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

That is not a point of order either.

I will let the chief government whip resume.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what we are seeing right now is an intentional direction, most likely from the whip's desk in the lobby for the Conservatives, to interrupt with points of order to try to silence the fact that I am bringing this up. They are so uncomfortable with this issue.

Let us talk about how uncomfortable they are. They will not even talk to reporters about it. Members should have seen the way they were fleeing down the hallways, running past reporters. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, who never misses an opportunity to say something, would not even stop to talk to the media about this. The member for Barrie South—Innisfil said, “Go, Blue Jays, go!” when he was asked a specific question about the RCMP. That is how worried they are about this issue.

It could all be resolved easily if the Leader of the Opposition would stand up and apologize for the comments he made, but he will not do that. I will tell members why he will not do it. It is because he has a history of doing this. He attacked Elections Canada when he was in government. He attacks the media. He attacked the Bank of Canada. He has a reputation for doing this, and he effectively gives a licence to all of his members to do the exact same thing.

I must admit that I was really surprised to hear, moments ago, a former law enforcement officer from the Conservative Party, the hon. member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, say there is a disconnect between the leadership and the rank and file within the RCMP. That is based on something he was told by a buddy of his, who presumably is in the RCMP. What a wildly outlandish statement to make. A statement like that is completely indefensible, unless he can defend it by talking about who made the comments.

The licence the Leader of the Opposition has given to his MPs is to act like this. I feel sorry for the four or five, and probably many more, Conservatives are rumoured to be getting ready to leave the party. I feel sorry for them because they have to be subjected to this. They have to be subjected to the comments from the member for Bow River. They have to be subjected to the comments from the member for Peace River—Westlock, and to the comments we heard from members who talked about the RCMP's lack of ability.

I will tell members one thing. On this side of the House, we will always stand up for the independence of the agencies of this country, including the RCMP. We will not allow our members to engage in this kind of blatant attack on the independence of them, which is exactly what we are seeing from the other side of the House. It is absolutely despicable. I do not know where he is from now, somewhere in Alberta, but the former member for Carleton, the Leader of the Opposition, should get up in the House and officially apologize to the RCMP for his behaviour.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this debate is supposed to be about Bill C-12, so my question is about Bill C-12. It is supposed to enhance border security, because a concern was expressed that has led to a tariff war, basically, with our neighbours to the south. Instead of reacting like the Mexicans did, who immediately put 10,000 resources in place at the border, the government announced getting 1,000 extra guards and have done nothing except put it off for five years.

Could the member explain why?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I reject the premise of the question. She said that what I talked about had nothing to do with this debate. As a matter of fact, I quoted several members from her political party who made comments.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman is laughing about it now, but I wonder if he agrees with the comments from the hon. member for Peace River—Westlock, who said, “The actions of the leadership of the RCMP...are indefensible in many instances.” The member spent years on the defence committee. Does he say the same thing about the members of our military, if he is so blatantly willing to laugh about the fact that members in his party are getting up and talking about the RCMP in this manner?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the RCMP is recognized around the world as a first-class organization and institution. That is how I am looking at this.

I would like to quote an article from the Winnipeg Free Press. In it, the leader of the Conservative Party said the leadership of the RCMP is “despicable”. He is reflecting on a Canadian institution that holds the highest amount of respect. I believe the leader of the Conservative Party owes all Canadians an apology for those remarks.

Would my colleague not agree that what is despicable are the actions of the leader of the Conservative Party?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yes, and at first I thought it was only the Leader of the Opposition, but now he can add another four or five names to that, including the member for Peace River—Westlock, the member for Bow River, the member for Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee and the member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, who have all made accusations about the RCMP during this debate on Bill C-12.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are witnessing quite a spectacle today. The member for Kingston and the Islands and his Liberal colleagues have just woken up. There is no one to speak to Bill C-12. The member just arrived, though the House has been in session since 10 a.m. Where were his colleagues? I am asking them to take this more seriously, to be a little more diligent. The government put Bill C‑12 on the agenda for debate and then it did not send anyone to speak to the bill.

As we know, when someone wants to hide their shortcomings, they talk about other people. That is exactly what my colleague from Kingston and the Islands just did. I would like him to tell me honestly why his party did not send anyone to speak to the bill today. Is there some sort of cancel culture at work among the Liberals that is preventing them from speaking to their own bill?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of debate on this issue, including the previous version of Bill C-12, Bill C-2. We have provided hours upon hours of debate on this.

The member is not new here. He knows the way this works. He knows that, if one side stops speaking, all the speeches will continue to go to the other side until somebody from this side wants to get up. That is how a debate works. I have been sitting in the House, listening to the Conservatives attack the RCMP all day long, and I felt the need to get up to defend it. I wish the Bloc would start defending a national organization like that.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-12, 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join the debate on Bill C-12.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister spoke to young people. This might have been an opportunity for him to apologize for the 10 years of Liberal failures that have led to historically high unemployment for young people. We are now at a point where the employment rate for young people is the worst it has been in over 25 years. Youth unemployment is approaching half a million young people. It is approaching a rate of 15%.

What is the response of the government to this catastrophe created by its own policy decisions? It is to tell young people that they need to give up more, that they need to sacrifice more. This is the framing we see from the Prime Minister. It is not to take responsibility for the failures of the Liberals over the last 10 years, but to blame the victims of bad Liberal policies. The Liberal approach is to constantly frame the problems we face as a country as if they are somebody else's fault and somebody else needs to take action other than the people who made the policies that got us there in the first place.

We have put forward a Conservative youth jobs plan to reverse the harm done by the Liberals. We have invited them to adopt that plan, but not only have they failed to adopt our jobs plan; they have not even put forward a plan of their own. Their policies attacking energy and job creation, which are pushing the essentials of life out of reach, are making young people increasingly worried about their future.

I was at Concordia University in Montreal yesterday speaking to young people about the situation, asking them whether they were better or worse off than the previous generation. Many young people are worried about their future. They have already suffered so much, yet the Prime Minister, rather than taking responsibility for 10 years of Liberal failures, is telling them that they will have to sacrifice even more. It is time for the government to stop blaming others and take responsibility for its own failures.

As we talk today about Bill C-12, the same is true when it comes to public safety and criminal justice. The government is constantly trying to externalize the source of these problems, yet we know that rates of violent crime were dropping prior to the current government coming into office and began increasing as soon as the government came into office. This is because the Liberal government made policy choices around more generous bail for repeat violent criminals. It made policy choices that got us here.

We will certainly study the provisions in Bill C-12 in detail. We look forward to the study that will take place at committee. However, there has been a complete failure by the Liberal government over the last 10 years to take public safety and crime seriously. It has not recognized that it is Liberal bail, Liberal policy choices and bills proposed and passed by the government that got us into this situation in the first place. Rather than calling on other people to make sacrifices, the government should have the humility to recognize its own policy failures and how the choices it has made on the economy, on crime, on immigration and in many areas have led to a situation where young people are more pessimistic about the future than they used to be.

We are here in this House to talk about restoring opportunity for young people and about restoring hope. I believe our country can have a bright future, but it is in the hands of the members of this House to make that future happen. It is not by sticking our heads in the sand like an ostrich that we make a future better for young people. It is by confronting the real data and real challenges when it comes to public safety and youth unemployment and making things better.

We call on the Liberals to adopt Conservative jail, not bail legislation and to adopt the Conservative youth jobs plan. Those are the solutions we need.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the member spent a lot of time talking about youth and jobs. I am sure he recalls, because he was around then, when Stephen Harper cut the the summer jobs program for youth. If we were to contrast the overall number of jobs, more than double the number of jobs have been created in the last 10 years than were created in the 10 years the member was part of the Conservative regime known as the Harper regime.

November 4 is coming up, and I believe we will see substantive measures to build hope in the minds and hearts of Canadians. It would be a drastic change for us to start adopting the failed Conservative policies that were demonstrated in the past. Even today, a Conservative colleague said the national school program was nothing but “garbage”.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is very simple. I will encourage the member to consult the labour force survey, which comes out every month from Statistics Canada and reveals the state of the job numbers.

He may not like spending changes or decisions made by the previous government, but objectively, young people were better off, our streets were safer, crime rates were lower, housing prices and rent were way lower and job numbers were higher. Objectively, we have the worst employment rate for young people in more than 25 years.

The Liberals want to measure success by intentions and government spending. We measure success by results that are available from Statistics Canada. The government should hold itself accountable to results, not rhetoric.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a very specific question.

Bill C-12 provides that railway companies and port authorities must pay for suitable facilities where border services can carry out inspections.

Does my colleague agree that companies, not the government, should pay for these facilities?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleagues are going to study the specific provisions of this bill in committee. We will have the opportunity to listen to witnesses and expert analysis, and I know that we will be able to respond based on this expertise and propose ideas following the discussions.

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I have not been in the House very long, but often when we are up speaking and proposing solutions, we hear a comment from the member opposite about something that happened decades ago.

I am curious to know what hope that offers the next generation, as outlined by my colleague's speech.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are focused on the past. It is a past when, objectively, housing prices were much lower and crime, rent and unemployment were lower. We think that noting the numbers from the past is important, but so is looking to the future and casting a vision that gives young people hope once again.

The reality is that many young people are concerned about what their future will be like because of policies of the Liberal government. It is not enough to manifest hope; we need concrete proposals. That is why we have put forward the Conservative youth jobs plan that would reverse bad Liberal policies and get young people back to work.

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I hear my colleague speaking and I gather that he is also a father and the head of a family.

In this fast-changing world, we are facing global inflation. Yesterday, the Prime Minister, as the leader of the government, spoke to young people about the realities of life so that they would not be surprised by what lay ahead in the coming months.

As the head of the family, would my colleague tell his children the truth? Yes or no?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not quite follow the question. I will continue to tell the truth, as I always have in the House, which is to articulate the specific numbers around youth unemployment and crime, to call on the government to make changes that recognize the challenges their policies have created and to make things better.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-12, 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise on behalf of the people of Cambridge and North Dumfries in this place, especially to discuss an issue as important as our Canadian borders and keeping people safe.

Everyone watching at home might remember that this is not my first time in the House talking about border security. A few weeks ago, I spoke about Bill C-2, which was introduced by the government with goals similar to those of the bill before us. I expressed my deep concerns with many portions of Bill C-2, including the parts that would allow Canada Post to open any mail without a warrant, ban certain cash payments and transactions, allow warrantless access to personal information, and let the government snoop on people's online activities and see deeply personal financial information from Canadian banks.

While this new piece of legislation, Bill C-12, is intended to address many of the thoughts that I, many of my Conservative colleagues and indeed people from all across Canada had about that old bill, I am grateful that the government listened to our Conservative ideas and the voices of thousands of Canadians, including people in my community, to remove these problematic elements. This proves that the work Conservatives are doing in Ottawa is producing results for the people we serve. Legislation about border security should be about keeping our borders safe, not about completely separate topics like online surveillance, private business transactions and reading people's mail.

Bill C-12 is a small step in the right direction, but it is not without problems. I am really glad that the sections encroaching on Canadians' personal freedoms and privacy rights are no longer in the bill, but let us talk about what else is not in the bill. There is still no action to end Liberal catch-and-release policies, meaning people who smuggle drugs and guns across our borders can still be arrested, get released and go right back to breaking the law all in the same day. The Liberals are still allowing people who get arrested for the most serious crimes to serve what should be multi-year sentences in the comfort of their own homes. There are still no mandatory minimum prison times for fentanyl traffickers, gangsters who commit gun crimes and other heinous offenders.

This soft-on-crime agenda is not just an abstract idea; it is hitting home in my community every single day. Last week, there was a shooting on Dellgrove Circle and Baintree Way. A couple of months ago, bullets struck a home on Park Avenue and Grant Street. Back in June, a house on Roseview Avenue was targeted with six gunshots in broad daylight. These are not supposed to be dangerous places. They are quiet neighbourhoods where families should feel safe. My neighbours in Cambridge did not ask for their streets to become crime scenes. Ten years ago, this would have been unimaginable in a country like Canada and in a community like ours. These are not just headlines; they are real families, real neighbours and real lives disrupted by violence. Every time I hear about another incident, I think of the children growing up in fear and the parents wondering if their street is still safe.

People reach out to me constantly in emails, phone calls, texts and responses to my community surveys. They tell me, “I don't feel safe when I lock the door at night or when I let my kids play out in the yard.” They asked me to bring their concerns to the government. I have stood up time and time again in debate and in question period to let the government know just how badly it is failing law-abiding citizens.

What does the Liberal government say in response? For years, the Liberals said, “Hold on, be patient, the legislation is coming soon”; that is, when they did not call us racist, conspiracy theorists or supporters of so-called American-style policies.

For this government, it has always been about doing something tomorrow instead of doing it today, about blaming someone else instead of taking ownership. The Liberals had an opportunity to fix the justice system in this very piece of legislation. They did not. The bail reform could already be reported out of committee by now. It is not; it is just getting started.

The Liberals had an opportunity to vote for Conservative legislation to put the bad guys in jail and end Liberal bail. They did not. They have ignored this problem for years; they have ignored the police officers, the mayors and the frontline workers. People in communities like mine are paying the price. Every day the government delays is another day criminals are allowed to break the law with absolute impunity, no deterrents, no consequences and no accountability. That needs to stop now.

Let us not forget who else is paying the price for this soft-on-crime, hug-a-thug approach: our emergency services, frontline workers, first responders and hospitals. Police are being stretched thin responding to repeat offenders who should never have been released in the first place. Paramedics are racing from one overdose call to the next, often with no time to recover between emergencies. Nurses and doctors are overwhelmed treating the fallout of drug poisonings, violent assaults and mental health crises, many of which could have been prevented if the justice system actually worked.

Our first responders are doing their jobs with courage and compassion, but are being asked to do more with less. They are expected to manage the consequences of failed policies while the government continues to delay action and deflect responsibility. When the system fails to hold criminals accountable, it does not hurt just victims, but everyone who is trying to keep our communities safe and healthy. It puts pressure on our hospitals, shelters, outreach workers and emergency services. It creates burnout, frustration and fear. These are the people we rely on in our most vulnerable moments. They deserve more than lip service; they deserve a system that works. They deserve a government that stands with them, not one that leaves them to clean up the mess.

While crime continues to rise, it is not the only crisis gripping our communities; the opioid epidemic is another tragedy unfolding in plain sight and one the government continues to mishandle. We see people living in tents in what used to be public parks and green spaces. We see people in doorways, on the sidewalk or the street corner who have lost everything they had because of one mistake. We hear the sirens of ambulances going to help someone who has had yet another overdose. Many people do not make it out alive.

These are not statistics; these are people who get a government in Ottawa that does not offer a helping hand or invest in recovery and treatment, a government that wilfully pushes hard drugs onto our streets through so-called safe supply sites.

There is nothing safe about a government-funded institution that hands out drugs that can literally kill people, all for free. These so-called safe supply sites do not just keep vulnerable people hooked on the poison that is killing them; they also feed the opioid crisis even more because many of the drugs they give away end up on the streets. The health minister testified in front of a parliamentary committee just days ago that not only would she not commit to ending this radical experiment, she would not even commit to ensuring these sites are not placed next to places like schools in our community. That means a safe supply site in a city like mine could be put right around the corner from kids who are literally four or five years old.

It seems like now everywhere has become a drug consumption site. I hear stories from parents who find needles and drug materials in parks and playgrounds, places we never would have dreamed of finding any of these things in just a few years ago. I find it a bit ironic that this bill is supposed to address the fentanyl flowing across our borders, all while the government continues to hand it out here at home and defend a regime that we all know has failed and is failing so many. If we truly want to stop the opioid crisis, then let us stop all the opioids, including the ones the government gives out for free in communities across Canada.

Concerns like these are ones my colleagues and I hope to address at upcoming committee hearings through amendments offered in good faith. We want to make this legislation stronger and better, because stronger legislation means better outcomes for the people we serve.

I would say to the people of my community that they should know that I have one goal in this debate: to keep our communities safe and to finally put a stop to the scourge of crime, chaos, drugs and disorder that is sweeping across—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Cape Spear.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the member's speech, and I have one question for her.

The member said that first responders deserve a government that stands behind them. Has she called on her leader to apologize to the RCMP, as he called into question its integrity and reputation, and said it did not do their job, or does she stand behind him?

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite really needs to look in his own backyard and at his own government.

Today, at the public safety and national security committee, the public safety minister doubled down on calling the RCMP racist. If that member wants to be serious about supporting police officers, then maybe the Liberals should back up that tough talk by voting for our Conservative legislation, which police unions from coast to coast to coast have been asking for for years, instead of voting against it at every opportunity.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague's speech.

Can she give me her opinion on the fact that Bill C-12 proposes to integrate the Coast Guard under the defence umbrella, under the umbrella of the Canadian Armed Forces, yet there are no plans to arm the Coast Guard? Does my colleague believe that our Coast Guard is genuinely being integrated into the military?

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot that is happening right now that is nothing more than a smokescreen for our current government.

The things she mentioned are no different than hiring 1,000 CBSA officers when the agency can barely deal with losses through attrition. When we open the Gordie Howe bridge next year, the shifting of personnel will leave a massive hole in the system. Plus, there is no training capacity for the 1,000 proposed officers. It is just more talk and no action from the Liberal government.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I note that the Conservatives are the only ones delivering speeches on Bill C-12 and that the only rebuttal Liberals have is an irrelevancy that has nothing to do with Bill C-12.

What does my colleague think? Is it that, now that the only provisions that allow the government to control Canadians have been removed, the Liberals simply do not care about Bill C-12?

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the Liberals are running out of policies to steal from the Conservatives.

It is deeply disheartening to see the Liberals not put up any speakers to defend their own bill, despite the fact that they are supposedly so proud of it. Even with the changes we forced the government to make, the bill still has deep flaws, as I outlined in my speech.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Bloc and across the way to work through the legislation to further fix this government bill to ensure Canadians' rights are being protected.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe the member makes reference to the RCMP, but does not concede the fact that her leader, the Leader of the Opposition, the leader of the Conservative Party, and this is a quote from the Winnipeg Free Press, called the leadership of the RCMP “despicable”.

It is disgraceful to have the leader of the official opposition making that sort of a statement. He owes Canadians an apology.

The member has the tenacity to try to throw it back at the government on another issue. Does the member agree that the Leader of the Conservative Party owes Canadians an apology, or does she support her leader's comments?

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what is despicable is what the member across the way is focusing on after I just discussed Canadian lives that are being lost due to the opioid crisis.

Lives are being lost every single day. What we need is accountability and prevention, stronger border controls to stop deadly drugs from entering the country, better access to real treatment and recovery, and a government that supports families, not failed experiments.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am speaking today to Bill C-12, a broad omnibus bill that, in its current form, seeks to make changes on a number of issues related to the border, immigration and crime prevention. I am thankful to my many constituents, and those throughout Canada, who added their voices of disapproval to its predecessor, Bill C-2. They raised their voices against the infringements it sought to place on individual freedoms and privacy. That bill, Bill C-2, wanted to allow Canada Post to open any mail, including letters, without a warrant, ban cash payments Canadians use and ban the donations over $10,000 that our charitable organizations need.

It wanted to allow warrantless access to personal information. It could compel electronic service providers to re-engineer their platforms to help CSIS and the police access information, and it would have allowed the government to supply financial institutions with personal information if the info were to be used for money laundering and terrorist financing purposes.

It it interesting to me why people are against this. It is their lack of trust in the government to ever consider allowing it to do these things. We certainly saw that when the government chose to invoke an illegal use of the Emergencies Act. It instructed banks to freeze everyday Canadians' bank accounts because it did not like that they were supporting people who needed gas for their vehicles, food and, hopefully, to find a hotel if there was one left downtown that the government had not bought out so they could not sleep in a warm place.

The Liberals also called Canadians all kinds of names, which I would like to see them apologize for, calling us misogynist, racist, extremist. These are the reasons Canadians made the choices they made to stand up against this bill. They do not trust the Liberals.

Because of the pressure they and so many stakeholders have applied, we were able to force the Liberals to back down, split the bill and introduce Bill C-12. The Privacy Commissioner confirmed that the Liberals did not even consult him when they were trying to grant themselves sweeping new powers to access Canadians' personal information from service providers, like banks and telecoms, without a warrant, although they kept saying there would be a warrant.

I am the member of Parliament for the wonderful people, who call the beautiful riding of Yorkton—Melville home, and as of October 15 this month, I have been here for a decade and have risen in this place to speak and intervene on their behalf. Over this tumultuous decade, the people of Canada, especially our younger generations, have become wary of the intentions of the Liberal government. It has tried, time after time, to usurp the rights and freedoms of Canadians, bully and divide, water down and destroy the very fabric of Canadian identity and quality of life.

The government continues to show its true colours as it holds fast to its efforts to make Canada the first postnational state. It holds fast to ravaging our economy with roadblocks and walls that continue to deter private investment in everything from mining to manufacturing and agriculture. The Liberal government is responsible for what Canadians see today. There is poor border security because of the Liberals. There is continued unsustainable immigration because of the leader. There is also an unprecedented financial burden of generational proportions it has orchestrated. All of this is impacting next generations.

This was all orchestrated by Justin Trudeau and the current Prime Minister, who was the instigator as Trudeau’s economic adviser and as the guy ready to finish his art of the deal with values that leave wealth in his hands and nothing for Canada. The exhaustion, attrition, depression and hopelessness felt within our police services, our Canadian Armed Forces, our first responders and our medical professionals are off the charts. The simple reason, the indisputable answer, is that total violent crimes have increased by 50% since 2015 and through to 2023.

I feel like I should have a moment of silence after mentioning each of these violent crimes that are taking place in larger and larger numbers across our nation: homicide, gang-related killings, sexual assaults, firearm offences, extortion, auto theft, horrific violence against children, forced confinement, kidnapping, indecent and harassing communications, human trafficking, and we do not have the numbers yet for 2024-25. This is not the Canada that Canadians have grown up in, and it is not the Canada immigrants who took the proper paths expected to be part of when they came here.

This is in response to the government’s failed bail reforms and the removal of mandatory minimum sentences in Bill C-75, Bill C-5's legalization of the possession of drugs and an open season for drug trafficking and fentanyl production in Canada.

Unfortunately, this bill is weak. It would make no commitments to enforcement, take no action on catch-and-release for those who traffic in fentanyl and firearms, and add no new mandatory prison times for fentanyl traffickers or for gangsters who use guns to commit crimes or who use our porous border to victimize Canadians. Instead of focusing on them, these Liberals are trying to confiscate legal gun owners' firearms, and they are having a bit of trouble accomplishing that, from what I understand.

House arrest is still permissible for some of the most serious offences. Safe consumption sites still do not provide addicts with the encouragement and support to move to treatment, and the Liberals continue to put children in danger with no move to shut down fentanyl consumption sites that are near schools and day cares.

I have to say that on this last part, I feel like I am living in that environment. I moved to Ottawa so that I could do my work, and the place I chose was in a good location. Then they introduced the legalization of drugs and put two safe consumption sites in that area, which is close to a school. Every morning now, as I walk to work, what I see on the streets has multiplied extensively, so this is not due to something that was in place before this happened.

There are people on the street who cannot stand up. They are bent over from the use of these drugs. They sleep on the grates to stay warm. They are sleeping in the little crannies between small businesses, and now there is a regular group that comes and picks up the garbage every morning. At 4 a.m., I am hearing the machines that come down the streets and the sidewalks to wash them, because one of the businesses that was there had to finally move, and it was one of the first in the city of Ottawa, because every morning, as I walk to work, they would be out with big pails of disinfectant cleaning the area in front of their business.

I hear more sirens from police and fire trucks every night, and there are nights when the loudness is so unbelievable, because it travels up through the buildings, that people cannot sleep. I am not blaming the people who are struggling. I am blaming the government for creating the environment that we have today that has added the violence that is taking place with firearms and attacks on people to this form of violence, which has basically caused multiple Canadians across this country to die from the use of fentanyl and caused their families to be in deep distress because of the condition of our country.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the fentanyl scourge that is taking place in North America is very serious for downtowns throughout North America, and I think that it is important that we recognize that, as a governing body, we should be doing whatever we can. We are securing borders, which will help. We attempted, though Bill C-2, to be able to deal with fentanyl being distributed through the mail, which the Conservatives oppose.

However, the question I have for the member opposite is this: If there were assurances that a court order would be necessary in order to look into an envelope to check it for fentanyl, would that member support that?

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, the issues around fentanyl are Canadian made. The government has allowed the precursors to this drug to come into this country for years without any oversight, knowing full well that this was going to mean we would have gangs and drug producers in this country making this situation far worse. This government has to take responsibility for its behaviour, and as far as that question about the mail, Canadians are still very concerned about those other issues, and they are watching, because I have assured them that they should not feel comfortable and that there is a good possibility that the government is still going to try to take away their rights and freedoms.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, under certain new measures, people who have been in Canada for more than a year will no longer be able to claim asylum.

Does my colleague think that the government should provide a humanitarian carve-out for vulnerable individuals or victims of persecution that occurred after their arrival?

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I hear the member and appreciate her question. At committee, these are the things we will have the opportunity to discuss and consider for amendments.

My personal feeling is that a year is an extensive amount of time. What Canada needs to do is get back in control of our immigration environment, and that may very well be part of the challenge. We have to do things in a timely manner. The government does not know how to do that, but Conservatives will.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things we have had a great deal of discussion about in the chamber is the RCMP. The leader of the official opposition made a profoundly derogatory statement about the RCMP, saying that its management is “despicable”. I am wondering whether the member opposite supports her leader's comments or whether she believes, as do a vast majority of Canadians, that the RCMP is an institution that has worldwide respect, that the leader of the official opposition was wrong and that he owes Canadians an apology.

Does the member believe in the integrity of the RCMP or in the leader of her party?

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I believe in both.

I want to thank the federal government for bringing attention to this issue and raising the viewership of Northern Perspective. I encourage more people to watch the interview and listen to the full statement that was made. Northern Perspective did a great job of rebuttal on this issue.

I am very proud of the RCMP and the individuals who work so hard in my riding. Conservatives will do all we can to improve their service.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we hear from the Liberal government that it takes fentanyl so seriously that it is willing go as far as looking into people's mail and violating their privacy, yet under the bill, there would be no mandatory prison time for fentanyl traffickers.

I would love for my colleague to please comment on that.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, giving a sentence that is worthy of the crime is something the government just does not understand. The reason for the growth in extreme violent crime is that criminals see the opportunities and are quite happy to go to jail and be let out again immediately. Again, the government is not meeting the—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Calgary McKnight.

[Dalwinder Gill, Conservative, Calgary McKnight, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House on behalf of the people of Calgary McKnight. I want to make it clear that today I am rising to speak to the bill because of my constituents. I have received countless emails in my inbox about the concerns they have about Bill C-12 and Bill C-2. Many of my constituents shared their concerns about provisions in these bills that would needlessly violate individual freedoms and Canadians' rights to privacy, and I want to address that.

Bill C-2 seeks to give the Liberal government broad surveillance powers. It would permit warrantless access to Canadians' mail and to their personal data from service providers. Alarmingly, these overarching measures were proposed by the Liberals without prior consultation with the Privacy Commissioner.

In some ways, Bill C-2 reminds me of Bill C-11 from a couple of years ago, which would have given powers to government bureaucrats to censor what Canadians can say or see on the Internet. It also reminds me of the Online News Act from 2023, which banned news from social media platforms and put local new groups at a disadvantage.

What we see, once again, with Bill C-2 is a government that believes it knows better than Canadians, a government that continues to seek control of the information Canadians can access online and to diminish their personal freedoms. Over 300 civil society groups expressed their concerns about Bill C-2, and Conservatives are proud to stand with them to fight against the legislation.

After backing down from Bill C-2, the Liberals have now introduced Bill C-12. Conservatives are examining the bill thoroughly to ensure that the Liberals do not try to sneak in measures that would breach law-abiding Canadians' privacy rights, as they tried to do in Bill C-2.

Before I dive deeper into Bill C-12, I want to highlight two important topics of concern to the people of Calgary McKnight: the rising wave of crime in our country and the drug epidemic, which has claimed over 50,000 lives since 2016.

Since 2015, crime in my hometown of Calgary has gone up by 58%. Firearm offences have gone up by 371%, and extortion has gone up by 353%. As I mentioned previously, the countrywide opioid epidemic has claimed tens of thousands of lives and represents a 200% annual increase since the government began its radical liberalisation of hard drugs. I heard one of my colleagues mention previously that the number of lives lost to drug overdoses in the last 10 year is higher than the number of Canadians who tragically lost their lives in the Second World War.

Conservatives have been calling on the government for years to get serious about crime and to secure our borders. We have urged it to strengthen bail laws, crack down on the flow of dangerous drugs and stop illegal firearms from pouring into our communities. It is deeply disappointing that the Liberals acted on border security only after being told to do so by another country's president. It should not take pressure from a foreign leader for the Liberals to finally do what Canadians have been pleading for all along.

Even in the Liberals' second attempt, Bill C-12 still fails to address several critical issues. It does not include meaningful bail reform but allows the catch-and-release of individuals trafficking fentanyl and firearms. It would not introduce mandatory prison sentences for fentanyl traffickers who are fuelling the deadly opioid crisis. It would not implement new mandatory prison terms for gang members who use illegal firearms to commit violent crimes.

Despite the Liberals' tough rhetoric, it still seems that their priority is going after the guns of law-abiding hunters and intercepting the mail of ordinary Canadians.

Canadians deserve a justice system that protects victims and communities, not repeat violent offenders, but after a decade of the Liberal government's soft-on-crime approach, we now live in a country where violent criminals are released within hours of arrest, thanks to the Liberals' Bill C-5 and Bill C-75. The Liberals repealed mandatory prison sentences for some of the most serious offences, like extortion with a firearm, weapons trafficking and importing illegal guns.

These are not small mistakes; these are deliberate policy choices that have emboldened criminals and eroded my constituents' confidence in the justice system. Conservatives believe in real consequences for repeat violent criminals and in sentencing that prioritizes the safety of Canadians over the comfort of offenders.

The product of the government's soft-on-crime legislation extends far beyond the courtroom. The fentanyl crisis reaches our streets, homes, hospitals and even children's playgrounds. The Liberal government's reckless policies have fuelled a nationwide drug crisis that has overwhelmed communities and left our brave first responders and health workers to clean up the mess. Meanwhile, the Liberal health minister refuses to rule out approving more drug injection sites next to schools and day cares, despite admitting that they are hot spots for fentanyl usage.

Some of the provisions in Bill C-12 appear to be well intentioned. On paper, the legislation seeks to strengthen border security, crack down on gun smuggling and target organized crime networks and trafficking across our country. These are causes that all Canadians can support and that Conservatives have long been calling for.

The measures to inspect more cross-border cargo to tighten tracking of money laundering and to intercept the flow of fentanyl and hard drugs are steps in the right direction. If implemented correctly, these measures could help protect our communities from the violence and drug addiction that have taken root under the Liberal government's watch.

I look forward to the bill's being thoroughly scrutinized to ensure that it can deliver positive results without trampling on Canadians' rights.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and the government were elected just a number of months ago. During the election campaign, there was a commitment made by the Prime Minister, saying that we are going to secure Canada's borders and we are going to look at stabilizing our immigration. Bill C-12 would do just that. It is a significant step.

There are also other measures, such as increasing the number of RCMP and border control officers. Collectively, the bill would make a huge difference, and I am glad to hear that the Conservatives are open to allowing the bill to go to committee so we can at least make it go through a process.

I believe that Canadians expect the politicians here in Ottawa to work co-operatively to make things of this nature happen. I wonder whether the member could provide his comments on working co-operatively.

[Dalwinder Gill, Conservative, Calgary McKnight, AB]

Mr. Speaker, under the previous Conservative government, the CBSA budget was increased by 45%, and staffing levels rose by 26%, strengthening Canada's front line of defence. We invested in the tools, personnel and technology needed to keep Canadians safe and to stop illegal smuggling.

We will never apologize for our strong Conservative record with respect to securing Canada's borders. Conservatives stand should to shoulder with the men and women in law enforcement who protect our borders and our communities every day. We will always support the people in uniform who risk their safety to keep Canadians safe.

I call on the Liberals to finally deliver on their promise to hire 1,000 new RCMP and CBSA officers instead of leaving our front lines understaffed and overworked.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the public safety critic for the Bloc Québécois, I can say that we have studied Bill C-12 at length. We have also heard from a lot of witnesses. I am an MP who is capable of weighing the pros and cons. Bill C‑12 contains some good measures, such as the one that gives the Minister of Health the power to identify precursor chemicals to fight the opioid crisis.

Does my colleague think that giving the Minister of Health the power to quickly identify precursor chemicals is a good idea?

[Dalwinder Gill, Conservative, Calgary McKnight, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in June, the Liberals tabled Bill C-2 without even consulting the Privacy Commissioner or considering its impact on Canadians' rights. Frankly, this is unacceptable. People's lives are at stake, and Liberals are introducing bills through trial and error. I hope we can work together to form a productive outcome for Canadians.

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his wonderful speech pointing out the frailties and shortcomings in this bill that still need to be talked about. My question is quite simple. The Liberals still seem to be pushing for safe consumption sites, including by schools, day cares and play zones, as you said in your remarks.

How do you feel about this disconnect—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I will interrupt the member. Members have to speak through the Chair; they cannot use the word “you”. I invite the member to continue but to refer to “member”, “colleague” or any other terminology.

The member can continue and finish his question.

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, how does my colleague feel about this disconnect when, on one hand, the Liberals say they want to work hard on fentanyl and its consumption, but at the same time, they are not willing to stop safe consumption sites close to schools and day cares?

[Dalwinder Gill, Conservative, Calgary McKnight, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal approach of expanding safe injection sites and safe supply programs has only fuelled addiction, crime and overdoses, leaving first responders and health care workers to clean up the mess. We believe in investing in treatment, recovery and enforcement, so Canadians can rebuild their lives.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are here to talk about Bill C-12. I am going to focus my speech. As many of my colleagues in the House know, I do a lot of work with our first responders and our veterans. I do a lot of work dealing with mental health throughout our country, so I will be spending a majority of my time talking about fentanyl and how it has had just an incredible, devastating impact on our country.

I would be remiss if I did not do this first. We have first responders all across our country who put their uniforms on every day to run into burning buildings, to run toward danger. Whether it is a nurse, a paramedic, a firefighter or a police officer, they are there to serve us and our families. They are there to make our communities safe.

One of my very good friends, somebody I deeply respect, Mr. Paul Hills, is in Ottawa today and has been here for the last week. I have worked tirelessly, shoulder to shoulder, with him to stand up for our first responders, who face threats of violence and violent acts each and every day. I am just honoured to call him a friend. I know that we are not allowed to acknowledge people in the gallery, so I will not look up to the gallery, but perhaps my colleagues could do me a favour and just provide a round of applause.

He has worked tirelessly to get Bill C-321 passed. The bill would change the Criminal Code to recognize, at the time of sentencing, that if the victim of violence is a health care worker, a nurse or a paramedic, that would be an aggravating factor in sentencing. He has been here working tirelessly with our Senate and with all of our colleagues on all sides. I send my heartfelt thanks to him.

Furthermore, I cannot speak to Bill C-12, about strengthening our borders, if I do not recognize and talk about Brianna MacDonald, whom I have talked about in this House before. At 13 years of age, she lost her life in a homeless encampment due to an overdose. She turned 13 on my son's birthday last year, on July 15, and she was found deceased on my daughter's birthday, a month later, August 23, in Abbotsford in a homeless encampment. Her parents did everything to try to get her off the drug and get her off the streets. She was 13.

We cannot talk about this bill or any bills when we are talking about strengthening our borders or making our communities safe without mentioning Brianna or Tyler Dunlap, or the nephew of our colleague, who mentioned her nephew passed away from an overdose. I lost my brother-in-law to an overdose. I lost my uncle to drugs. I have a brother on the streets now who is gripped with this crisis. I cannot leave that at the feet of the government because he has been on the streets for a long period of time.

However, I ask those who are watching and those who are in the House today to take a look around our communities. Do they look the same as they did 10 years ago? The answer is no. There has been an increase in crime.

Fentanyl flows across our porous border. We are absolutely powerless to stop this drug from flowing across our border. That is why we are standing here to compel our colleagues, to plead with our colleagues across the way in the government, to protect our youth, strengthen our borders and ensure that law enforcement has the tools it needs to stop illicit drugs from reaching our communities. Right now, whatever we are doing, it is not working.

Over 50,000 Canadians have lost their lives since 2016. Those are just the numbers that we know. In my home province of British Columbia, overdose is the leading cause of death for youth ages 10 to 18. I say it in every speech because it bears repeating time and time again. Do members want to know what the second leading cause of death is? It is suicide.

Our country is gripped in a mental health crisis and all we look at are band-aid solutions. That is not blaming the current government or previous governments; it is blaming us collectively as leaders, whether provincial, federal or municipal. We are failing Canadians. Bill C-12 does nothing to affect that.

I was elected 10 years ago on Sunday. One of the first debates I undertook in the House was on the suicide epidemic in Attawapiskat First Nation. I remember listening to the debate and hearing some of our colleagues who had been in the House a lot longer than I had at that point say that their first debate, years earlier, was on the suicide crisis we had in Canada. We have done nothing; they are band-aid solutions.

Collectively, as a Parliament, we passed my motion to bring a three-digit national suicide hotline to Canada: 988. We did that in the last session. However, there is so much more we need to do. When we see Bill C-12 and bills like Bill C-2, an omnibus bill with much ado about nothing, we question why.

Those who are new in the House, I remember being in the same seats as some of them in the back rows of both sides. I came here with great intentions and had great hopes for all, but we are failing. I cannot remember who said it, but one of our colleagues said that the time for talk is done; we need action.

Over seven and a half million Canadians are without a doctor. Our borders are broken and we are going to bring more immigrants into Canada, but they are not going to be able to get a doctor. They are not going to be able to afford food. They are not going to be able to afford a house or a roof over their heads. Where is the compassion in that?

Our police officers and first responders are taxed. How far are we falling when it is okay to firebomb an ambulance, to stab a paramedic or to knock a nurse out when they are just trying to help us, heal our broken bones or hold our hand as we take our last breath?

I challenge all of our colleagues here. We get heated during question period, but when we talk about things that matter, like the mental health of Canadians, the health and wellness of Canadians, I think we could all agree that there is no health without mental health and that our addiction crisis is real. Bill C-12 does nothing to stop the scourge of fentanyl, drugs or guns coming over our borders.

We can do better. The government needs to do better. The provinces are calling for it. The attorneys general are calling for it. The municipalities are calling for it. The police agencies are calling for it. I challenge all of us, but I challenge the government, because that is its legacy after 10 years. It says it is new, but it is the same old, same old. I know there are good people on that side, so I challenge them to speak up, those members, those colleagues, and to challenge the guy in the front desk to do better and be better.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

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 Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, Justice; the hon. member for Northumberland—Clarke, Housing; and the hon. member for Lanark—Frontenac, Public Safety.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague across the way for his speech. We have had the great pleasure of working together over the last 10 years on multiple files, one of which he mentioned in his speech.

He referenced somebody who may or may not be on the Hill and in the chamber today. While this is not about Bill C-12, I did want to flag to him, which I think he will be happy to hear, that in the legislation tabled this morning, Bill C-14, on page 19, in proposed subclause 39(1), injury to first responders was added. That was in a private member's bill he brought forward in the last Parliament. I just wanted to let him know that.

As he is very passionate about this, would he be willing to work with our government to make sure that when we hopefully get Bill C-12 to committee, we have some amendments—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

We have to give a chance to the hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George to respond.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I just read the notice that the government has taken up excerpts of our bill, Bill C-321, but I have not had a chance to look at whether they go far enough. We know the Senate just passed Bill S-233 last night. It is back in this House as we speak. My understanding is that Bill S-233 is complementary to the new bail reform bill. We also know that Bill C-321 passed at all levels in the last Parliament, and only due to the election call did it fail to get through. Time and time again, we need to send a message to our first responders and those who wear uniforms that we care for them and that we will protect them through thick and thin.

I look forward to working with our colleague across the way.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke at length about fentanyl. I extend my condolences to all who have lost loved ones to the fentanyl crisis.

What are my Conservative colleague's thoughts on the federal government strengthening co-operation with the Government of Quebec and the United States in order to effectively tackle this crisis and end cross-border smuggling of these synthetic drugs?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is the only way to get anything done. We have to have a multi-tiered plan to work on this. Because we have a nation filled with different jurisdictions, like the provincial jurisdictions, regional jurisdictions and others, we have to work with these groups and each province to make sure we are doing something.

Moreover, we need leadership at the top. Somebody has to take the reins and say, “This is how we are going to do it”, and convene meetings to get this going. What we are doing right now and what we have done to this point are not working.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad my colleague brought up the issue of youth death and its major causes. He named overdoses as number one, and the second is suicide. In many cases, youth suicide is caused by addiction issues.

Does the member mean that the number of deaths related to drugs is bigger than the overdose numbers?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in Canada, we have a black hole when it comes to statistics. We know that those numbers are likely much higher. The numbers we have are only the ones that are reported. Due to the stigma surrounding addiction and suicide, many cases are unreported. I believe those numbers are actually higher.

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I heard my colleague talk about an important point that affects me personally as a father. He asked us to speak frankly, objectively and with leadership.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister spoke frankly with some young university students and told them where the country is headed, where we are headed.

Would my colleague be prepared to broach this type of subject with our government frankly and truthfully, in an upfront way, and support our government in this process?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is new here, so I will forgive him if he is not aware of my record. I am who I am. My stripes have never changed, and he can ask any of his long-standing Liberal colleagues that. My record stands for itself.

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when we consider any bill, we need to ask a fundamental question: Who will this bill benefit? Will this measure that the government or the House is proposing make our programs more effective, make our services more compassionate and make our country fairer? When we look at Bill C‑12, a bill that aims to strengthen our immigration system and our country's borders, I think that the answer is clear. It is a resounding yes.

This bill strikes a critical balance between a compassionate and a rigorous approach. It also strikes a balance between openness and security. It seeks to improve the way the government serves Canadians, newcomers and those seeking protection in our country, in Canada. It strengthens our security, supports our prosperity and enhances co-operation between the federal, provincial and territorial governments. In short, this reform is necessary. It is a compassionate and responsible reform.

Now I want to talk about the benefits for asylum seekers. The proposed measures will fundamentally modernize our immigration and refugee system. The aim is to better meet the country's needs while protecting the most vulnerable, those who seek refuge in Canada, often risking their lives to do so. These measures reflect a clear commitment to a sustainable immigration system, one that is rooted in compassion but that reflects our country's actual capacity to welcome, house and integrate newcomers. Canadians want our asylum system to remain a symbol of hope. They want a fair system that protects those fleeing war, persecution, hardship or climate hazards elsewhere in the world but that remains firm toward those who seek to abuse it.

Bill C‑12 creates a single online application process that is simpler, faster, more transparent and integrated. Thanks to better coordination between departments, cases will now be “decision-ready” when they are referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. The result will be fewer delays, less confusion and, above all, greater fairness.

The bill also changes how late or irregular claims are handled, especially those filed more than a year after someone arrives in Canada. Asylum seekers will now have 14 days to submit their claim and will not be automatically sent back to the United States. These claims will be referred to a fair removal process that includes a pre-removal risk assessment. This will ease the pressure on our system while ensuring fairness and dignity in every case. By simplifying the process, we are making the system more compassionate, but we are also making it more efficient and effective. Behind every asylum claim, there is a face, a human being, a story, and, above all, hope.

I will now address the issue of integration with the territories and provinces. An effective system also relies on collaboration, coordination and communication. Bill C‑12 promotes a closer partnership between the federal government, the provinces and the territories. It modernizes the communications framework to enable the rapid and secure exchange of information on immigration, citizenship and passport services.

Every day in my riding, Bourassa, I see how newcomers enrich our neighbourhoods. They contribute to our economy, our culture and our community vitality, including through their sporting achievements. I have spoken about this often here in the House.

By improving information sharing between Ottawa, the provinces and local organizations, we are sure to succeed. This strengthened partnership will make our system more effective, fairer and more compassionate, as I said earlier.

I will now talk about the public safety benefits. The safety of Canadians remains a top priority. We have seen human smugglers and criminal groups take advantage of irregular crossings to get around our system.

Bill C-12 sends a clear message: Canada is still a welcoming country, but it is not naive. People who enter irregularly will have their cases dealt with through a fair removal process rather than by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. This measure protects the integrity of the system and strengthens public confidence. In short, these reforms ensure that our system remains both fair and secure.

I would like to conclude by saying that I believe in this bill and hope that everyone in the House shares the same view. If there is one thing I can say about this bill, it would be that the government is acting responsibly and trying to strike a balance. The most difficult part of making these decision is maintaining a balance between openness and constant vigilance. I would also say that this bill is a major step forward and that it makes our immigration system more modern, more consistent and more compassionate, while maintaining that balance. It strengthens public safety while maintaining the humanitarian tradition that Canada is so proud of.

This bill reflects the vision of a Canada that is open, yet orderly; welcoming, yet vigilant; caring, yet responsible. That is the balance I was talking about. I am convinced that this bill will make our immigration system stronger and more deserving of Canadians' trust. I therefore ask my colleagues to support this important, balance-oriented legislation, and I thank them for their attention.

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, would the member opposite agree with me that there is a clear duality in the intent of the Liberal government and that it is failing to walk the talk by leaving out minimum mandatory jail time for fentanyl traffickers and for gangsters?

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, there is no duality. Rather, we are trying to strike a balance between openness and vigilance. That is very important. No one can say that the government has done nothing, quite the opposite. We invite our colleagues to come and discuss the matter in committee, because we simply must get the bill passed. What we are striving for is balance, not a duality.

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, would the member agree with me that there is no minimum mandatory jail time for drug traffickers, for fentanyl traffickers and for gangsters in this bill? Also, the bill does not mention anything about stopping safe consumption sites from being close to schools and day cares. Young families are being impacted on a daily basis. How is the government going to stay true to its intent of making sure the legislation protects those who are affected by it?

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not saying that my colleague's question is irrelevant, but it strays a little outside the scope of the bill. I can still give him an answer, though. This bill does not compromise national security. Quite the contrary, it strengthens identity and background checks, and it helps all stakeholders play a more proactive role in the fight against fentanyl trafficking.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to border security, the Bloc Québécois and the unions have long called for patrolling between border crossings to be allowed, not because we want to replace the RCMP, but to increase flexibility and the possible scope of action on the ground. Will the government commit to amending the regulations to allow patrolling?

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the main purpose of this bill is to establish greater coordination and collaboration between the federal government, the provinces, the municipalities and the regions. With that coordination, I do not think a single thing needs to be added, because every border and every region has completely different constraints. Coordination and collaboration are what is most needed, and that is what this bill delivers.

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government says it is going to hire 1,000 more officers for the CBSA, but hiring 1,000 CBSA officers barely deals with the losses currently happening through attrition. When we open the Gordie Howe Bridge next year, the shifting of personnel will leave a massive hole in the system. In addition, there is no training capacity for these 1,000 proposed officers.

Can the member explain how we are going to be able to meet the goal of 1,000 new officers being proposed?

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the Minister of Public Safety has already answered that question. He has already made it clear that we are committed to strengthening recruitment in this field and to providing the necessary resources to combat trafficking at our borders.

At today's meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, the discussions were reassuring, and we are working to increase resources to combat trafficking at our borders.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

The question is on the motion.

If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that it pass on division.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I suspect that if you were to canvass the House at this time, you would find unanimous consent to call it 5:30 p.m. so we can begin private members' hour.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.