Bill C-220

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (immigration status in sentencing)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to provide that, in imposing a sentence on an offender who is not a Canadian citizen, a court must not take into consideration the offender’s immigration status in Canada.

Criminal Code

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

moved that Bill C-220, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (immigration status in sentencing), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, should judges be allowed to use a non-citizen's immigration status to issue a more lenient sentence to non-citizens convicted of serious crimes like sexual assault, just so that they can avoid deportation? The answer is no.

Tonight, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-220, the one law for all bill, which represents and reasserts the principles already laid out in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act with regard to the deportation consequences associated with non-citizens convicted of serious crimes, such as sexual assaults, in Canada.

The vast majority of people in Canada who have immigrated here abide by our laws. Removal from Canada for non-citizens after being convicted of a serious crime is a no-brainer to protect everyone, the value of Canadian citizenship and, frankly, every person who resides in our country and plays by the rules.

After a decade of Liberal postnationalism and excessively high immigration levels, accepting this change would allow the government to demonstrate respect for Canadian citizenship by affirming that, at a minimum, the privilege of residing here for non-citizens depends on adherence to the rule of law. Everything that I have outlined and that I will outline tonight will show that beyond rote partisanship, there is no reason for the government not to support this bill. In fact, to save Canada's pluralism, the government must start admitting its errors with regard to immigration and working across party lines to accept common-sense solutions.

Recent public polling shows that support for immigration among both Canadians and newcomers is at an all-time low. This opinion should shock and spur every person in this place to action to find ways to solve this problem. That is what I am trying to do with this bill today. Thankfully, the reason Canadians do not support immigration the same way they used to is not because Canadians are pointing their fingers at immigrants. Rather, Canadians who are unhappy about immigration are pointing their fingers where the blame should be placed, at a federal government that has, over the past decade, brought too many people in too fast for housing, health care and jobs to keep up, while simultaneously legislating a doctrine of postnationalism that asserts that there is no Canadian national identity, which includes things like an equanimous judiciary, for non-citizens to integrate into.

Canada is at a tipping point. The government must quickly act to restore the immigration system that it broke. If the government will not act, which it has not, then Parliament must. In the spirit of non-partisanship, I have used my private member's bill slot to correct one of the many areas the government needs to act on to fix the immigration system. Later tonight, I and my colleagues will move many amendments to Bill C-12 in a further effort to do the same.

Going back to this bill, to be fair to everyone and to prevent the further erosion of Canada's tolerance for immigration, we must ensure that non-citizens who commit serious crimes like sexual assault face the consequences that are already set out in our laws. At a bare minimum, non-citizens who abuse the great privilege of being in our country by committing a serious crime like sexual assault should face the deportation consequences that are already outlined in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Here is how we can do that. The bill before us tonight amends the Criminal Code by adding a new general sentencing principle under section 718. This is the section of the code where Parliament has exercised its right to provide guidance to the courts on how convicted offenders ought to be sentenced.

My bill proposes to add a simple, one-line new principle, section 718.202, which states that a court, when sentencing a convicted criminal “who is not a Canadian citizen shall not take into consideration any potential impact the sentence could have on the offender’s immigration status in Canada, or on that of a member of their family.”

This simple one-line provision ensures that provisions that are already outlined in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act are enforced when sentencing non-citizens convicted of serious crimes, like sexual assault.

That is the how, and here is the why. In recent years, there have been multiple instances of judges issuing sentences to non-citizens convicted of serious crimes that were designed to allow them to evade deportation. The net effect of this practice in considering a non-citizen's immigration status in order to give them more lenient sentences to avoid deportation is to create a two-tiered justice system between non-citizens and those with Canadian citizenship.

This is unfair and antithetical to the principles of fundamental justice, and it has eroded Canada's immigration consensus. Here are but a few examples of the rampant, excessive number of times non-citizens convicted of serious crimes like sexual assault have been issued two-tiered, lenient sentences in very recent history, just so they would avoid the deportation consequences already set out in the law.

A non-citizen from India pleaded guilty to no fewer than four counts of voyeurism, which left his female victims with intense fear and anxiety and emotional distress. He was sentenced to five and a half months jail. Why? Despite the judge admitting that six to 12 months would have been a more appropriate sentence, this was to avoid deportation. The judge even said this.

In a 2024 Calgary case, another non-citizen from India was granted a conditional discharge for attempting to purchase sexual services from a 15-year-old girl. This was done to allow him to preserve his eligibility to become a Canadian citizen and avoid deportation. The judge cited in the sentence “the devastating collateral immigration consequences” of a harsher penalty. What about the victims'?

A non-citizen in Canada on a visitor permit was convicted of twice groping an 18-year-old woman's genitals under her skirt as she stood at a bar to buy a drink. This person, this non-citizen, received a discharge from the judge so he could have a deportation appeal.

In March 2024, a 24-year-old non-citizen from Surrey, B.C., received a conditional sentence of two years less a day for aggravated assault and possession of a weapon after stabbing a stranger. It sounds serious. What did the judge do? The judge rejected the Crown's four-year jail recommendation so the non-citizen would be able to avoid deportation.

In October 2025, just last month, Roosevelt Rush, a non-citizen from Jamaica, had his cocaine trafficking sentence halved from an expected term, while already serving six years for fentanyl and firearms offences, because the judge wanted to help him avoid deportation.

In 2024, in B.C., a non-citizen was convicted of fraud and received a six-month sentence, which a judge shortened from 10 months so he could avoid deportation.

In 2024, a non-citizen from Somalia was convicted of assault with threats against police and had their jail time cut short to evade deportation too. It was a refugee who committed these crimes while getting the benefit of Canadian sanctuary.

There is all this consideration for non-citizens convicted of serious crime to avoid deportation, but what about the victims? What about the value of Canadian citizenship or the responsibilities associated with being in our country? Being in Canada cannot just be about receiving the privileges and benefits of being in Canada, which are great. It also has to be about adhering to the responsibilities associated with that privilege, which includes adhering to the rule of law.

There are many other examples that illustrate the trend of immigration status being considered in sentencing, with criminal lawyers now routinely arguing for lighter sentences so their non-citizen clients can evade deportation or a denial of citizenship under IRPA's current provisions. Let me explain why this is happening.

Ever since the Supreme Court ruling in R v. Pham, the courts have been giving greater consideration to collateral immigration consequences when sentencing. To be clear, this court ruling explicitly ruled that this consideration does not constitute a charter right, a remedy or a charter breach. In fact, this ruling does not even mention the charter once. Furthermore, the court ruling also made clear that “The flexibility of our sentencing process should not be misused by imposing inappropriate and artificial sentences” and that to do so would be “circumventing Parliament's will”. That is clearly not what is happening.

Activist judges have twisted this ruling, as evidenced by the proliferation of examples I have given, beyond its scope in order to allow non-citizens who have been convicted of serious crimes to get more lenient sentences to avoid deportation. That is what is happening. Meanwhile, Canadians would not be given the same consideration, so we have a two-tiered justice system. The will of the court cannot be trusted if it is allowed to go unchecked, as it clearly has in all of these cases. My friends and colleagues, it is long past time for Parliament to exert its will and rein this poison in.

To be very clear to every colleague here, the Supreme Court has been clear that the people of Canada who are concerned by crimes committed by non-citizens have every right, through their elected representatives, to provide guidance to sentencing judges. That is exactly what this simple, common-sense, non-partisan bill would do. Just this morning, the Globe and Mail editorial board said that judges in our current system are “protecting non-citizens from the consequences of their criminal conduct”, lamenting that no one seems to consider “whether Canadians would want these offenders as citizens” in the first place. That was from the Globe and Mail.

While it is tempting to blame judges for this state of affairs, the fault lies with the federal government. In spite of the increased evidence of leniency in sentencing due to consideration of immigration status in recent years, it has declined to provide more clarity to judges through legislation. That is why I introduced a bill to amend the Criminal Code and rectify this issue. The rationale for this change is straightforward: Anyone seeking residence or citizenship in Canada, as I said, has responsibilities as well as rights.

The citizenship guide clearly states that citizens must obey Canada's laws and respect the rights and freedoms of others, and IRPA outlines the potential consequences for non-citizens who fail to do so.

A non-citizen in Canada should accept individual responsibility for defending the democratic institutions of Canada's constitutional monarchy, which is an ordered liberty rooted in the principles of peace, order and good government. In practice, this means they will defend shared Canadian rights, like freedom of conscience and religion; freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of speech and freedom of the press; freedom of peaceful assembly; freedom of association; and the equality of women and men. All Canadians and those seeking to become one are expected to abandon any violent, extreme or hateful prejudices and to contribute to Canada. They are expected to respect the rule of law and accept the consequences for not doing so.

Without legislative clarity on considering immigration status in sentencing, judges can apply aspects of the Pham ruling to undermine that principle for non-citizens, effectively end-running the deportation consequences already enacted by Parliament that exist in IRPA. To those who would say this bill offends the principle of judicial independence, I want to make it clear that it is entirely appropriate for Parliament to offer guidelines to the courts on sentencing. Section 718 already does this in countless ways, but I will highlight four examples.

First, the very beginning of section 718 in the Criminal Code states in part that the fundamental purpose of sentencing is “respect for the law”. I would argue that Canadians lose respect for the law when it is not applied equally, as it has not been done in the case of non-citizens convicted of serious crimes like sexual assault.

Second, section 718.1 states:

A sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender.

I would assert that at no point has Parliament intended to say that the “responsibility of the offender” is reduced because of their immigration status. To suggest otherwise is to remove agency from an individual just because they were born in a different country, and that is wrong.

Third, subparagraph 718.2(a)(iii.1) lists the following as an aggravating factor for the purposes of sentencing:

evidence that the offence had a significant impact on the victim, considering their age and other personal circumstances, including their health and financial situation

Many of the cases I highlighted tonight involve sexual assaults, which obviously have a significant impact on the victim and disproportionately impact women. Our bill seeks to re-establish this general sentencing principle, which has too often been ignored.

Finally, paragraph 718.2(b) states:

a sentence should be similar to sentences imposed on similar offenders for similar offences committed in similar circumstances;

Obviously, giving the offender a lighter sentence just because of their immigration status offends this principle. It is well within Parliament's purview to reassert this general sentencing principle by further clarifying for judges that they should not take into account an offender's immigration status.

In closing, I would like to thank Sean Phelan, an unsung hero in Canadian history. A lot of people will not know this name, but he has single-handedly worked to reform Canada's justice system over the last 10 years. I thank him for his help on this bill tonight.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will have a bit of time to expand on some thoughts shortly, but I have a question for the member. The reference she always makes is about sexual offences. There are many different types of offences that a person can commit. I had an opportunity to tour, quite a while ago, prison sites where gambling addictions have led to a lot of types of crimes that ultimately make a person go to jail. Those are not sexual offences. I will just mention that to the member. I will expand on it shortly.

Does the member have any genuine confidence in judicial independence?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I outlined in my speech why my bill upholds the principle of judicial independence. It also outlines how the Pham decision intended for the courts not to do exactly what they are doing right now, which is to subvert the will of Parliament. It has already been exerted in IRPA, which clearly states that a non-citizen convicted of a serious crime should be deported.

My colleague is introducing a principle for crimes like fraud and drug trafficking, or other offences. If somebody reaches the threshold of serious criminality in IRPA, they should be deported.

He laughed at this. For everybody watching at home, the Liberals laughed at the principle that underpins Canadian citizenship. To him, if someone commits a serious crime, they should stay here if they are a non-citizen. It is garbage.

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that very knowledgeable speech. I had a tough time keeping up with her. It is a very complicated subject, but the premise of it is pretty basic given the crimes being committed.

We hear Liberals trying to equate sexual crimes with gambling crimes. There is a specific victim when we are talking about women and children being victims of sexual crimes. I do not want to leave the House with the idea that we should be diluting that just because of the status of an immigrant.

Can my colleague elaborate on the victims, especially as we are talking about murdered and missing women and violence against women, which the Liberals profess to stand up for?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will speak to two provisions briefly. The Criminal Code already states that sentencing needs to consider the impact on a victim. My colleague is absolutely right. However, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act also clearly states that a non-citizen who has been convicted of a serious crime should be deported. This is for any serious crime, because there is a victim in any crime but especially in serious ones.

What has happened through the Pham decision is that activist judges have perverted the original ruling, subverted the rule of Parliament, proliferated a set of leniencies for non-citizens convicted of serious crimes like sexual assault, and undermined public confidence in both the justice system and the immigration system. This is no way to uphold a pluralism. In fact, that is how a pluralism falls apart. Maybe that is what the Liberals want. After a decade of postnationalism, saying there is no national identity and eroding the rule of law, this where we are at. They need to support this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for bringing this bill forward. It is a great bill.

We have heard in the past stories of judges reducing a sentence so that particular people do not get deported. To me, this totally seems like a way of reducing the value of Canadian citizenship. I am wondering if she can comment on that.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is why the bill is so important. In order to preserve the value of Canadian citizenship, we need to understand there are responsibilities associated with being in Canada, not just privileges and benefits. In order to have those privileges and benefits, there are responsibilities. The bare minimum, as outlined in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act already, is not to get convicted of a serious crime. IRPA says that if a non-citizen is convicted of a serious crime, they should be deported.

I am sorry, but the will of Parliament needs to be supreme. I am actually not sorry, to be clear. Parliament needs to assert its will, rein in these activist judges and do what the federal government has not done. It has let them run amok for a decade and let them undermine the value of Canadian citizenship. They do not seek restitution for victims, and they make it unfair for every immigrant who comes here and plays by the rules, which is most immigrants.

This is a no-brainer bill. Every week, there is one of these stories, and every week, if the government—

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

Mr. Speaker, in many ways, I disagree with the motivation that is behind bringing this piece of legislation forward. The member herself even made reference to what is happening with public opinion in regard to immigration in general.

Is it any surprise that the Conservatives like to feed that perception? We see that with a number of actions and statements that they make. Even when I posed a question, the member responded by saying that I laughed and that the Liberal Party laughed. That is just not true. At the end of the day, I suggest they look at what happened. I did not laugh. I take the issue very seriously.

What I see across the way is a Conservative Party that does not take the issue of judicial independence very seriously, nor do its members have any concept of what good, sound public policy is in the best interest of Canadians and permanent residents. They would like to talk about the extremes and then exaggerate them to the degree that they feed anti-immigrant feelings in our country. I say shame on them. I think it does a very strong disservice to Canadians in general.

Let us think of a permanent resident. We could have a permanent resident living in Canada for 40 years. Do members know that permanent residents actually have family members here, some of whom do have citizenship?

Let me give an example of one file I had not that long ago. There was a father who was married, and he had a number of children. I believe he had three, or it could have been four; it might have even been five. It was at least three children. They were all citizens, but he was not. For a number of reasons, he was not. He was a permanent resident. There was an incident that involved drugs. At the end of the day, I believe that at the—

[An hon. member]

He tried to buy sex work.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is really shameful to hear the allegations that are being thrown out across the way about buying sex and sexual violence, attributing that to the individual I am talking about. Shame on them.

[An hon. member]

Shame on you.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, they need to understand the system before they start levelling the allegations that they have.

The Conservatives need to be a bit more understanding in terms of what happens in our communities. There are individuals who make bad decisions. Sometimes it does not necessarily justify a deportation. In some cases, it does not justify it. There could be extenuating circumstances that need to be taken into consideration, yet the Conservatives stand back and say nothing.

Where is that caring attitude for real people who are not committing the types of crimes that have been referenced by the mover of this legislation? At the end of the day, with the types of crime that are being suggested, people are going to be deported anyway. If someone is going out there and raping another individual, do we really believe that they are going to get special treatment from a judge when they go before a court? It is nowhere near the degree to which the Conservatives are trying to put it on the record.

I would suggest that it does two things. It clearly demonstrates that the Conservatives do not have respect for judicial independence. They do not respect judicial discretion. They talk about the rule of law, but let us look at the legislation they have brought before the House. The legislation consistently questions judicial independence and a judge's ability to have judicial discretion. They bring in legislation that is not charter-proof. They are prepared to walk on the rights of Canadians and, I would even suggest, permanent residents. Not everyone gets Canadian citizenship and has been here for 40 years. They do not for a number of different reasons.

It affects all communities. If you stand up and you are going to a multicultural event, tell them to their faces your feelings that even though they are here for 30 years, they should not be treated like a Canadian. Shame on the Conservative Party.

We live in a multicultural society, and there are good reasons for that. Many constituents whom Conservative members represent do not have a Canadian citizenship. There are well over a million plus; I would suggest it is probably over two million people who live in Canada who have been here for years and do not have Canadian citizenship.

At times some of them might fall on the other side of the law, and it does not necessarily mean that they are bad people and have to be deported. In certain situations, yes, but the difference is that Liberals believe in judicial independence. We understand the necessity of having discretion for our judges.

The Conservatives were talking about immigration numbers. The member for Calgary Nose Hill made reference to the “high immigration” numbers. Let me remind the Conservatives that I was in the opposition when Stephen Harper, back in 2014, said that they wanted to increase the number of temporary students and instructors to over 400,000 temporary visas by 2022. That was a Stephen Harper commitment. Following that, we had a pandemic.

There is a reason we have the situation we have today. Yes, there is responsibility on all of us, on all sides, to try to do what we can to stabilize our immigration, temporary visas and so forth, but continually and consistently, we hear from Conservatives who downplay the importance of immigration. They have a lack of respect for permanent residents, and we have seen a good example of that today. I would suggest that the Conservatives need to stop thinking about the far right movement within their caucus and start thinking in terms of what is in the best interests of Canadians.

This is legislation, as you can tell, that I will not be supporting. I do not see the merits of it. I think it is a betrayal of judicial independence and a betrayal of allowing judges to have discretion.

The Conservatives have not demonstrated at all that judges as a whole have not used proper discretion. Yes, there could be individual cases out there, but I have not heard a great amount of detail on those cases. Many of the types of cases we hear today are the same types of cases that would have been told when Stephen Harper was the prime minister and the current leader of the Conservative Party sat around the Conservative caucus, but at that time, they did not do a thing.

Today, the Conservatives are so far to the right that they want to appeal and say things that are ultimately, I would suggest, anti-immigrant. That is the reality. That is the type of thing we are seeing from the Conservative Party as it makes that shift even further and further to the right. It is no wonder Joe Clark said that he did not leave the Conservatives; the Conservative Party left him. It is the reason we have Kim Campbell feeling so uncomfortable with today's Conservative Party.

Is it any wonder that, at the end of the day, the Conservative Party needs to start seriously doing some internal review? We will wait and see what happens to the leader of the Conservative Party. I suspect he might get a few bumps, but at the end of the day I suspect he will survive, because the majority of the caucus is far to the right, based on the types of things we have been hearing in terms of not wanting the government to invest in social programs and that there is no role for the Government of Canada to build on social programs, whether it is health care, pharmacare, dental care, food for children, child care programs or supporting our seniors.

The far right and the Conservative Party do not like government. That is the type of thing we are seeing more and more of coming from the Conservative Party of today inside the House of Commons.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Good luck. I hope you are in opposition for many more years to come.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that common sense will prevail and this legislation will not even make it to committee.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

I will remind the member to address comments not directly across the floor but through the Chair.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this bill, in principle, deserves to be studied. In addition, the Supreme Court tells us that the immigration status of an accused should be taken into consideration. When reading the bill before us today, we get the impression that the mover understood that this was supposed to be the determining factor. That is obviously not what the Supreme Court said, and that is not what we think. It would be absurd if people with a precarious citizenship status could in fact commit crimes without punishment. I would be the first to be outraged and object to that.

However, things are not there yet. That is one factor among many. That is what the Supreme Court said, and that is what we are being asked to consider. However, we need to make a distinction between two scenarios.

Let us take the case of a drug trafficker who has already been convicted or charged in his own country, who finds himself in Canada and gets arrested with significant amounts of drugs, and says that he does not yet have Canadian citizenship status. Personally, I would not shed too many tears over the fact that he would never again have an opportunity to get his Canadian citizenship. I do not think that would be a big loss for Quebec society or for Canadian society.

Let us consider another case, a mother of three young children who is here waiting for her status, whose work permit has expired and has not been renewed for all sorts of administrative reasons. Her children have nothing left to eat, and she gets caught stealing a ham at the grocery store. That is an offence. It is theft, but will she be sent back to her country of origin because of it? The judge should not find her innocent of the crime since she did commit, but should it be a factor in sentencing? I think so.

The drug dealer who gets caught stealing a ham at the grocery store and the mother who gets caught doing the same thing may technically be committing the same offence, but I believe the court should take that into consideration. That is what we call judicial discretion or human justice. That is something Quebeckers believe in.

I would also be curious to hear someone talk about the frequency of crimes committed by newcomers. I am not sure there are that many. Newcomers are so focused on integrating, finding a job, learning the language, supporting their family and sorting out their health care and education needs that I doubt they would feel inclined to get mixed up in crime. I am not saying that it does not happen, but it is probably not a common occurrence that requires much of our attention.

On top of that, those among this group who commit crimes are not usually inveterate, dangerous or hardened offenders. I do not think there are many, if at all. In fact, the main cause of crime, whether for newcomers or long-time residents, is poor integration. These are people often called social misfits: people with no job and no interest in working, who for a variety of reasons live on the margins of society. They often commit offences like drug use, trafficking and so on. The problem, however, is that these people have fallen through the cracks of our society. They are are not well integrated or well adjusted. Social services try to help them and bring them back into the fold.

When we talk about newcomers, we are also talking about good integration. A poorly integrated newcomer will certainly be tempted by crime, convenience, theft, violence and drug trafficking. Poor integration will certainly encourage that type of situation. However, successful integration, with newcomers who have been taken care of, who have found a job, whose children are in school and who have learned the language, will ensure that those people do not commit crimes. If there are people, they are extremely rare. They will not come up.

What is the federal government doing to integrate newcomers? The bill before us proposes that newcomers who commit a crime be sent back to their home country. I agree, as I said earlier, at least in some cases. In other cases, I am less inclined to agree. That said, what is being done to integrate newcomers? What is being done to ensure that they do not fall into the trap of crime? Nothing is being done. There is no money and no transfers to the provinces. There are no resources. There is no collaboration between the federal government and the provinces.

The federal government sets its immigration thresholds and issues invitations. Members will recall when our former prime minister quite spectacularly invited all immigrants who were unhappy in the United States and who were not being treated properly to come here. He said that Canada would welcome them with open arms. He organized the party and sent out the invitations, but he forgot he had to buy beer and sandwiches for everyone. Many people came to Canada, and the vast majority of them entered Quebec.

Why did they come to Quebec instead of going elsewhere? That question may need to be explored at some point. I do not have that information or that kind of expertise. Nevertheless, they came to Quebec, and the province had no choice since immigration is a provincial responsibility. They had to be integrated, schools had to be paid and clothes had to be purchased. People need to be dressed for winter. It is cold during the winter, and people need boots and coats. They also need health care. Steps had to be taken to determine whether parents who wanted to work could get work permits. They had to be housed, despite the housing crisis. There has been much talk about the fact that the housing crisis was more pronounced because of the influx of migrants, yet the federal government never did anything to integrate them. The federal government left it up to the provinces to figure it out. They had to make the arrangements. Then the government wonders why these people are not integrated and why some of them commit crimes.

Before coming to the House, I did a quick Internet search on newcomers. I did not have to look very far. On August 30, 2025, just a few months ago, a Canadian-American family from Bromont was facing deportation after 15 years in Canada. Four of the six children are Canadian; they all speak French; they love Quebec; they are well integrated, and they want to stay. However, for reasons unknown, the mother received a deportation notice and had a choice between going on her own and leaving the children here, or taking them with her and returning to where she came from. That is not a very elegant integration process. The woman had not committed any crimes, and she was working.

I have another example, that of a family originally from Mexico. This is more recent news, from November 5. It was my colleague and friend, the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île, who stepped in. According to the newspapers, a Mexican family with two autistic children narrowly avoided being deported from Canada. That family found out that they were getting a reprieve just one hour before boarding the plane. The family has three young children and they have been in Quebec for seven years. Two of those children have severe autism and were born in Canada. I will not tell the rest of the story because I am running out of time.

Here is another example, from November 3. It concerns a 26-year-old man whose family is here in Quebec. His 24-year-old wife was presented with a fait accompli. She received a deportation notice. They have a child. She was forced to return to Mexico. He returned to Mexico with his wife and child because he did not want to leave her all alone. That is not very nice. That is what the federal government is doing in terms of integration.

There are not many options left for Quebec. We can continue to let the federal government bring people into our province without helping us integrate them, which creates untenable situations. We can also make a decision. We may have to make a decision and take control of all the levers. If Quebec wants to succeed, it will have to be sovereign and take control of all the levers. We will have to collect our taxes and use them to integrate these people. We will have to decide for ourselves who we welcome, when, where, and how we integrate them. In the meantime, we are subject to ill-conceived federal decisions that create problems for us. Unfortunately, I suspect we have not seen the end of it.

Quebec has to become independent in order to have full power, determine immigration thresholds, collect its own taxes, and use them appropriately. This is the only solution I see for us to get out of this situation, unless the federal government wakes up and decides to start working with the provinces and with Quebec.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, 10 years of radical open borders policies and mass migration have undermined confidence in what was the best system of immigration anywhere in the world. The Liberals imposed this radical approach without any care, consideration or thought for the strains it would place on our housing, health care and job market. The result is chaos in our streets.

Nowhere is this problem more acute than in the area of lawlessness and criminality that the Liberals have invited through the system. They have allowed people to come to this country and get visitor visas and other permits to enter Canada without actually performing any criminal background checks. To this day, there are 400 criminals who have since been ordered deported but have not left and have vanished completely into Canadian society.

Furthermore, our legal system now discriminates against Canadians and in favour of non-Canadian, non-citizen criminals who are here, in fact, lowering the sentences they receive for convictions in order to allow them to stay. This is an unbelievable perversion of justice that does exactly the opposite of what we should seek. It should be a stated policy of our system to get criminals out of Canada. If someone is not a citizen, not a Canadian and commits a crime, then they should be shown the door because becoming a citizen of this country requires good, law-abiding behaviour that will protect the well-being and the interests of this country.

I will read through some examples of the kind of backward thinking that has pervaded our system.

In the Pham decision, a key matter was that the sentence had to be reduced in order to allow the defendant to stay in the country.

In 2023, in another case, a 30-year-old man, Akashkumar Khant, tried to have sex with a 15-year-old at a Mississauga hotel for $140. He received only a conditional sentence because a stronger penalty would have hindered his and his wife's ability to obtain Canadian citizenship. On June 25, Khant was sentenced to a conditional discharge for committing an indecent act. For three months, he was placed under house arrest, during which time he was able to go shopping for three hours every Sunday, attend religious services and medical appointments, and travel to and from work, with 12 months of probation afterward. In other words, his sentence was specifically reduced so that he could stay in Canada.

In 2024, a 25-year-old non-citizen, originally in Canada on a study permit and then a visitor permit, sexually assaulted an 18-year-old at a club in Calgary. Despite being found guilty, the court, led by Justice Anne Brown, took into account that he would be deported without appeal if the charge was one of sexual assault. Therefore, the court decided to discharge him and subject him to 15 months of probation. If he had been a Canadian, he would have been convicted of sexual assault and actually gone to jail, but as a privilege for being here as a non-citizen non-Canadian, he had his sentence reduced to no jail time and therefore was allowed to stay in this country.

On July 22, 2025, a Canadian judge hit the brakes on a guilty plea from a non-citizen linked to a homicide and facing serious criminal charges, citing discomfort with the fact that the accused would likely be deported if found guilty.

Victor Bueron, a 22-year-old Filipino national, was set to plead guilty on multiple charges stemming from a high-risk takedown by Barrie Police earlier this year. He was arrested on January 17, along with several co-accused, after officers stopped a vehicle in a north end plaza and allegedly found drugs and firearms. His sentence was reduced to preserve citizenship possibility.

In October 2025, Roosevelt Rush, a Jamaican national convicted of smuggling 55 grams of cocaine while already on bail, had his sentence slashed in half to just 12 months from what would have been a proportionate due sentence. In part, this was because of his immigration status.

Again, on October 2, a judge reduced the sentence of Aswin Sajeevan, who was here on a study visa, to just five and a half months in jail because a sentence of six months would have made him inadmissible to Canada on grounds of serious criminality. According to an article, the judge specifically weighed the “immigration consequences” for the former international student, who spied on his female housemates through a peephole in the bathroom wall; he made videos recording the four of them in various stages of undress over a period of six months.

We see example after example in which judges are specifically lowering the sentences of non-Canadian citizens in order to allow them to stay in Canada. We welcome law-abiding, hard-working Canadian immigrants, people who want to come and productively build our country while following our laws. We do not welcome people who want to come here and commit crimes. That is why I am very pleased that the member for Calgary Nose Hill has introduced the bill which I rise to speak to today, Bill C-220, an act to amend the Criminal Code, which would prohibit judges from lowering sentences or penalties on the basis of immigration status. We have one law. It should apply to every person equally. A person who does the crime should do the time, and if that makes them ineligible to stay in Canada, then they must leave, full stop. That is just the reality.

Canadians have the right to live in peace and tranquility. They have the right to know that when they walk out the front door, they will not be harmed. They should also have the right to valued citizenship. We do not give away citizenship to anyone who comes here and breaks our laws. Arriving here as an immigrant means that there is a certain degree of responsibility, just as there is for those who are born here. Those responsibilities include following the laws, respecting others and protecting the safety of fellow Canadians and newcomers to this country.

We believe in a system of controlled, merit-based immigration, in which we welcome people who want to join the Canadian family, work hard, succeed and build a better life. The vast majority of immigrants seek exactly that. They come, often fleeing violence and danger, but when they arrive here, they do not expect to be victimized by criminals who then use loopholes in order to stay in Canada and avoid penalty under the law.

As Conservatives, we believe that Canada can once again be a safe place where all people feel that they live in peace and harmony, where their property and their persons are protected, where everyone is equal under the law, where people are held accountable for their behaviour and where, most of all, Canadian law becomes paramount and anyone who comes here understands that following the law is the basic responsibility that is necessary to graduate from visitor to temporary resident, permanent resident and, eventually, citizen. Citizenship in Canada must have restored value, and that value starts with respecting the safety and the security of every Canadian and the rule of law in our land.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today to private member's bill, Bill C‑220, an act to amend the Criminal Code with regard to immigration status in sentencing, introduced by the member for Calgary Nose Hill.

This bill raises fundamental questions about our justice system, such as the individualization of sentences, proportionality, parity and, above all, the key role the judiciary plays in determining fair sentences that are tailored to the circumstances of each case. It also touches on the delicate but very real intersection between our criminal justice system and our immigration system.

However, far from improving this system, Bill C‑220 weakens it. It seeks to take away some of the critically important discretion judges have and to overturn, without justification or evidence, the Supreme Court of Canada's unanimous jurisprudence. This should be of concern to us all.

According to the Conservative member who introduced this bill, the courts give preferential treatment or overly lenient sentences to non-citizens when they consider the consequences of immigration, such as the loss of the right to appeal or the possibility of removal from Canada.

The facts do not support this claim. No study, no analysis and no attorney general, either federal or provincial, has indicated that the courts are misusing the existing jurisprudence. When very minor sentence reductions occur, such as a one-day reduction, they are rare, transparent and entirely subject to appeal. The bill therefore proposes a heavy-handed and rigid solution to a problem that simply does not exist.

The bill creates a new section 718.202 in the Criminal Code that would explicitly prohibit judges from considering any immigration-related consequences when sentencing someone who is not a Canadian citizen. In other words, even if a sentence of six months, rather than five months and 29 days, automatically triggers the loss of the right to appeal a deportation order, the court would be legally obligated to ignore the very real impact and serious consequences this would have.

Citizens serve their sentence and return to their community. Permanent residents and people who came to Canada when they were children could be sent back to a country they do not know. Judges would be forced to pretend as though this reality does not exist. That is not justice, it is not proportionate and it is certainly not what our Constitution requires.

In 2013, under a Conservative government, the Supreme Court of Canada clearly stated that some of the very real consequences of sentencing include consequences related to immigration status and, as such, they can be considered by the courts. The court made two key points on the matter. Yes, a judge can take into account immigration-related consequences to ensure that the sentence, as a whole, remains proportional to the crime committed. The court also said that, no, those consequences cannot outweigh the seriousness of the offence or the moral responsibility of the accused, no matter what Conservatives say. The framework we have is balanced, reasonable and constitutional, and it has been working for over a decade. However, today, the Conservatives are proposing to abolish that jurisprudence. They were in power when that decision was made. They had two years to do something about it, if they thought it was really a problem, but they did not do so.

The member for Calgary Nose Hill and the Leader of the Opposition, who was the member for Carleton at the time, were government members then. However, they did nothing at the time. That tells us that what they are trying to do today is not to correct an injustice, but to recycle a punitive policy that, at the time, had already been subject to constitutional challenges on a number of occasions.

Anyone familiar with criminal law knows that. Sentencing is based on a fundamental principle: individualization. Two people who commit the same crime will not necessarily have the same history, vulnerabilities or family responsibilities, nor face the same consequences. The courts already take a wide range of collateral consequences into account for all Canadians, not just for immigrants. Collateral consequences can include the loss of a job, the risk of homelessness, a lengthy family separation, mental health impacts and, in some cases, the inability to pursue an education. Why, then, single out only one category of consequences—immigration consequences—and prohibit judges from considering them?

This inconsistency clearly shows that Bill C‑220 is not founded on legal logic, but on political logic. In reality, the effects of a criminal sentence vary widely depending on the immigration status of the person convicted.

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act states that a sentence of six months or more means an automatic loss of the right to appeal a deportation order, and a sentence of more than six months or an offence punishable by 10 years means that it is possible to be deemed inadmissible on the grounds of a serious crime.

Those consequences are not part of the Criminal Code. They are the result of a parallel administrative regime created by Parliament. Prohibiting judges from considering those consequences means accepting or even institutionalizing the fact that two people convicted of the same offence will experience fundamentally different consequences. Yes, a two-tier justice system, that is what our Conservative colleague wants to set up with Bill C‑220, and it is the opposition's bill that would create that injustice, not the courts.

Our government opposes Bill C‑220, particularly because it is ill-conceived, because it is not based on evidence, because it violates the principle of proportionality, parity and fundamental justice, and because it would undermine judicial independence, a pillar of the rule of law.

When someone proposes measures to amend the Criminal Code, when they say they want to improve public safety, they need to approach it seriously in the House. They need to ensure that the proposed measures truly respect our Constitution. That is not the case here. Bill C-220 and other private members' bills introduced by colleagues from the official opposition would be struck down by the courts. This is simply a waste of time, a waste of resources and results in disappointment for Canadians.

On our side of the House, we understand that, and we make sure that we propose legislation that is truly tailored to the situations we are dealing with. We also ensure the proposed legislation is constitutional. For example, I am thinking of Bill C-14, which proposes a major overhaul of the Canadian bail and sentencing system. This bill proposes more than 80 amendments to the Criminal Code that are, I repeat, in line with our Constitution. We want to make it more difficult for criminals, particularly violent repeat offenders, to obtain bail and ensure that sentences are truly proportional to the crimes committed. We are very serious about safety in our communities. I invite my colleagues to support us in our legislative work on Bill C-14.

Other initiatives that come to mind are Bill C‑12, which aims to strengthen border security; Bill C‑9, which aims to combat hate crimes in our communities; and our commitment to better protect victims of intimate partner violence. There is also our strategy to combat fraud and financial crimes that typically impact vulnerable people such as seniors. Our government is serious. We are going to implement the first anti-fraud strategy, and we have allocated resources in the 2025 budget to support these initiatives.

I am also thinking of all the investments being made in the 2025 budget. This demonstrates how serious our new government is about public safety.

I am thinking of our border plan, the largest investment ever made Canada to ensure that our borders are secure. This is an important issue in my riding given that it has more than five border crossings. I am also thinking about our investments to increase the number of RCMP officers and CBSA agents. When we invest in public safety, we also understand that we must prevent crime upstream. That is why we are investing in housing, mental health and youth supports—to address the issue of petty crimes and property crimes before they even happen.

With Bill C‑14, we are strengthening actions against those who pose the greatest risks. In addition, with our budget, we are also investing in preventing crime from happening in the first place, and that is very important.

Bill C‑220 will not make Canadians safer. It will not build trust in the justice system. It will only lead to injustices, inconsistencies and predictable constitutional challenges. Our role is to build an effective, fair and evidence-based justice system, not to build one based on political slogans. However, the bill from the member for Calgary Nose Hill puts rhetoric ahead of sound, evidence-based policy. Justice must not be blind to the consequences of its own decisions. Bill C‑220 calls for exactly that, and for these reasons, I will be voting against the bill, and I am asking all my colleagues from all parties to vote against it.

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

The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.

The House resumed from November 25, 2025, consideration of the motion that Bill C-220, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (immigration status in sentencing), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the Bloc Québécois immigration critic, I want to tell the House our position on the bill introduced by my Conservative colleague from Calgary Nose Hill. We will vote in favour of Bill C-220 so it can be studied in committee. This is to allow for continued democratic discussion on the important issue of sentencing in criminal cases where the accused does not have citizenship status.

However, my colleague should curb her enthusiasm, because we have several reservations about this bill. These are serious reservations, which I will summarize in two points. First, we believe that the current legal situation is well balanced. Second, we believe it is important to preserve judicial discretion, in order to avoid inappropriate decisions that fail to take the circumstances of individual cases into account.

Before I go over our reservations, let us look at the bill and its purpose. Bill C-220 contains a single clause that seeks to amend the sentencing portion of the Criminal Code. The clause reads as follows: “A court that imposes a sentence on an offender who is not a Canadian citizen shall not take into consideration any potential impact the sentence could have on the offender's immigration status in Canada, or on that of a member of their family”. If this bill were to pass, a judge would simply not be able to consider the impact of a criminal conviction on a non-citizen's immigration status. Why does my Conservative colleague want to go in that direction?

We got some answers from an article published in the National Post on December 1, which reported that the Conservative Party was outraged that a court had permitted an adjournment in a criminal case to allow an accused to weigh how his reaction to the charges would affect his immigration status. Adjournments are very common in our courts. In this particular case, the adjournment allowed the accused to gather information and ultimately make an informed decision, which was to plead guilty. It also meant avoiding a trial and allowing a victim of sexual assault to avoid having to testify, as that was what the case was about.

I am struggling a bit with this, but the National Post article states that the Conservative Party has identified several cases where it feels that criminal sentences for non-citizens were determined in such a way as to reduce the sentence in order to avoid deportation. The purpose of this bill is therefore to prevent judges from reducing sentences for non-citizens by considering the effect a conviction would have on the criminal's immigration status.

To help the people watching at home understand what comes next, I want to say a few words about the consequences of a criminal conviction for an immigrant. The impact depends on the person's status, but the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act provides for adjustments when someone has been convicted of an offence. If the person is a Canadian citizen convicted of certain more serious offences, they will not be able to sponsor family members.

For non-citizens, the penalties are more severe. If a temporary resident, such as a student, worker or visitor, is convicted, they may become inadmissible. If a temporary or permanent resident is convicted of a serious offence, the sentences can range from more than six months in prison or at least 10 years in prison. That person will be inadmissible. It should also be noted that a criminal conviction will generally prevent someone from obtaining Canadian citizenship.

That being said, let us come back to the Bloc Québécois's reservations. First, what is the current state of the law when a judge is sentencing a non-citizen? It is set out in the Supreme Court's 2013 decision in R v. Pham. We can discuss that of course, but in my view, the rule is fairly well balanced. I will summarize it by quoting a few passages from that Supreme Court decision.

It reads, in part:

A sentencing judge may exercise his or her discretion to take collateral immigration consequences into account, [judges currently have the right to do so] provided that the sentence ultimately imposed is proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender. The significance of collateral immigration consequences will depend on the facts of the case. However, it remains that they are but one of the relevant factors that a sentencing judge may take into account in determining an appropriate sentence. Those consequences must not be allowed to skew the process....

That is the state of the law.

In that decision, the Supreme Court of Canada found Mr. Pham guilty of producing and possessing marijuana. At trial, he was found guilty but also sentenced to two years in prison. After the trial, his lawyer realized that if he had been sentenced to two years less a day, he would not have lost his right to appeal a removal order against him. That is when an appeal was filed with the Court of Appeal. What the ruling shows is that the Crown prosecutor believed that a sentence of two years less a day was fine. The Crown would have agreed to it if it had been asked. The question was whether the Court of Appeal could intervene in such a case.

The Supreme Court reiterated that the current rule when it comes to sentencing is proportionality. That is a fundamental principle that is very simple to understand. A sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender.

Another important principle is the principle of parity and the correctional imperative of sentence individualization. Each sentence must fit the individual in order to have a deterrent effect and to reflect the degree of moral blameworthiness of each defendant. In this analysis, the court will be able to look at the collateral consequences of a sentence. It will consider any effect that the sentence will have on the offender themselves. The immigration status of the convicted person will be one of the collateral consequences and will be part of the judge's analysis. The judge has to weigh various objectives in determining the sentence, including the objective of assisting in rehabilitating the offender.

The Supreme Court states that:

...collateral consequences related to immigration may be relevant in tailoring the sentence, but their significance depends on and has to be determined in accordance with the facts of the particular case.

The general rule continues to be that a sentence must be fit having regard to the particular crime and the particular offender.

[However], a sentencing judge may exercise his or her discretion to take collateral immigration consequences into account, provided that the sentence that is ultimately imposed is proportionate to the gravity of the offence....

I will close with this passage:

These [immigration] consequences must not be allowed to dominate the exercise or skew the process....

That is how things currently stand. Basically, if someone has been convicted and is in the process of immigrating, the impact their conviction will have on their immigration status will be taken into account, but it cannot be a decisive factor. There are already examples in case law that prove the opposite, where people tried to have their sentences reduced by saying that it would prevent them from being deported, but their argument was rejected. Most notably, those arguments have been rejected by the Ontario Court of Appeal. The case of Guzman v. R in Quebec is another example. The Conservatives need to prove that the current system needs to be changed.

Our other argument is that it is important to preserve judicial discretion, because each judge can look at each case to ensure that a humane and appropriate decision is made. If judges are prevented from taking this factor into account, mistakes could be made. In short, we are willing to look at everything to try to improve the system, but above all, we do not want to make it worse.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-220, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (immigration status in sentencing), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to a great private member's bill from my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill. This is a good bill. What I like about it is its simplicity. It is very simple and common sense. I want to commend the member for her hard work on this and her understanding of where Canadians are. This bill resides at the intersection of two key areas. One is crime, which people have lots of things to say about, and immigration is the other. When we look at polling and talk to people in, say, my riding, and I know that all of us talk to people in ridings every day, we hear about crime and immigration.

People are very concerned about the system we have today, so this bill really comes at the intersection of that. In crime, we have things like revolving doors and low or no penalties. In the immigration system, we have problems with asylum, temporary foreign workers, international students and wait-lists. The intersection is when judges in the criminal system consider sentencing and take immigration status into account when they sentence individuals. That is what this bill aims to address.

Many bills in the House, I would say, are quite complicated. Members often have to look at them multiple times to understand what they say. Others are very simple, and this bill happens to be a very simple one. I am going to read part of it. It says, “A court that imposes a sentence on an offender who is not a Canadian citizen shall not take into consideration any potential impact the sentence could have on the offender’s immigration status in Canada, or on that of a member of their family.” Simply put, a judge considering a sentence for somebody found guilty of a crime would not be able to consider the impact it would have on their immigration status. In other words, there would not be a two-tiered system of sentencing in Canada. Today, we have a two-tiered system where judges take into account immigration status, where one criminal gets a lesser sentence than another simply because of immigration status. I am going to give some examples of that and show why that is a problem.

First of all, I want to make it clear that we are talking about non-citizens, people who are not yet Canadians. In our current law, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, it is very clear that, when certain thresholds are met for crimes, such as the length of time that has been imposed for a sentence, there are consequences. The one that most people are aware of is, if a person gets a sentence of more than six months, it means that they have to be deported. That is often a major consideration when judges are looking at sentences.

I want to give some examples because I think the help everybody to understand. We would like to think that our system is clean, that everybody is looking at it in a fair, common-sense and logical way, and it just does not work that way. I will give an example of this later, but, unfortunately, some judges are activists who want to impose their own thinking and take advantage of the the laws to do things that are not really fair and that create this two-tiered sentencing system.

In the first example, a non-citizen was facing charges of drug trafficking and possession of a weapon. This person was facing a three-year sentence and deportation because of that. This person wanted to plead guilty and the judge did not want to accept that because the judge was concerned that the accused did not understand the implications to his immigration status. The judge stopped the trial and tried to get the person to understand the implications of pleading guilty. This person somewhat understood, but still wanted to plead guilty, yet, even then, the judge stopped the trial and essentially forced this guy to talk to an immigration lawyer, almost as if to say, wink, wink, he needed to talk to somebody because he could get a better deal if he just waited. The judge was essentially acting as the lawyer for the person he was sentencing. By the way, this same person was facing a manslaughter charge, so this was not a one-off thing. This person was facing some serious time.

A second example is another non-citizen who stabbed a victim with a knife. The victim required 18 stitches and 50 staples to heal their body. This was a serious crime. The Crown asked for four years, and the defence asked for a conditional sentence. Why did it ask for a conditional sentence? It was because it would avoid the deportation angle and also allow the accused the ability to appeal their immigration status, should they need to do so. What did the judge do?

The judge said, “Oh, you are right. We need to be careful about this because of the immigration status, so we are going to go with the conditional sentence”, which is not what would have happened to any other Canadian citizen had they been in this situation. Here, again, we have a case where the judge was lenient to an extreme degree, so much so that the Crown appealed this to the B.C. Court of Appeal. The higher court found that the judge had used the collateral immigration consequences at issue here to reduce the respondent's sentence to the point where it became disproportionate to both the gravity of the offence and the moral blameworthiness of the offender. Thankfully, in this case, the B.C. Court of Appeal was able to catch this and fix it, but there have been many other cases where it has not been caught.

Another example is a non-citizen who was out on bail for trafficking cocaine. The judge cut his sentence in half, citing the tough life the criminal had, injuries and immigration status. Another example was a man who was trying to procure sex from a 15-year-old girl. The judge said the conviction would not only delay his citizenship by four years but could prevent him from sponsoring his wife and obtaining his engineering licence, and that those immigration and professional consequences were far more severe than jail. Again, here was a judge who was using immigration status to determine a sentence.

All of these cases and many more show why this private member's bill is so important. They show why this bill is critical to closing a loophole that exists in our system and that judges are abusing to give people lesser sentences, thus giving us this two-tiered system.

How did we get here? A big part of this is because of the Liberal justice reforms that happened. I want to focus on Bill C-75, which is a bill that fundamentally shifted the power balance to criminals. We talk about bail, not jail. Everyone has heard that comment many times. We have talked about it a lot. It really comes from Bill C-75, which was passed by the Liberal government.

The principle of restraint was the new thing introduced in this bill, and it essentially means this: It instructs judges to give sentences that are no more restrictive than necessary. They are to release the accused at the earliest opportunity. They are to release them on the least onerous conditions, and imprisonment should only be used when absolutely necessary and for the shortest duration possible.

These were the instructions given by the Liberal government to judges. Go easy on people is essentially what this means. The judge has the ability to go easy on the person. Guess what. Judges took this principle of restraint, married it up with the immigration issues that we have been talking about to this point and started applying this to immigration cases. That is how we ended up with sentences that were disproportionate to the crime, and how we ended up with this two-tiered sentencing system that we have.

This is something that is a big problem and that is why I am happy to stand to speak to this bill today, because this bill that was submitted by my great colleague fixes this in a very simple way. It creates a single system of sentencing for all people in Canada.

There are other problems that we have in our sentencing system. I also wanted to mention, and I talked about it earlier, activist judges. I just want to highlight this one example that really describes the problem. I am reading from an article from the National Post. I just want to read a couple of things from of it. It says:

In 2013, Toronto lawyer Avvy Yao-Yao Go described herself as a “loudmouth activist for politicians to contend with.”

This person was very aggressive in providing leniency to people who were not citizens of Canada. The government, in its wisdom, decided to make her a federal court judge in 2021. She has done incredible things to halt revocation proceedings against people. There have been all kinds of things that she has done to provide leniency through her court. At the very end, it says:

...decisions in the last year alone show a pattern of leniency for rule-breakers, country-shoppers.... Each instance takes state capacity away from cases that truly matter.

There are many examples we can think of. I just want to conclude by saying this bill, Bill C-220, is a good bill. It fixes a major gap that we have in our system. It is a wonderful, simple bill that I support wholeheartedly. I would implore all members to pass this bill when it comes time to vote.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-220, introduced by the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill. My remarks today will focus on the immigration implications of the bill and what I believe is at stake for all of us as Canadians.

Before I turn to the substance of the legislation, I want to say something that I believe deeply and that I know the vast majority of Canadians share. We are a nation of immigrants. From the very earliest days of Confederation, people have come to the country from every corner of the world, bringing with them their talents, their traditions, their determination and their dreams. They have built our cities. They have staffed our hospitals and our schools. They have started businesses that employ our neighbours. They have served in our armed forces. They have enriched our culture, strengthened our economy and made us who we are.

Canada is the envy of the world, and that is not by accident. It is because of the extraordinary diversity of the people who call this country home. Our strength has always come from our differences, from our willingness to welcome those who seek a better life and to stand together across lines of language, faith and heritage.

This is the Canadian story, and it is one we should tell with pride every single day. In my riding of Davenport, I see the story lived out in real time. I represent one of the most diverse communities in this country. Families from Portugal, from Latin America, from the Caribbean, from Southeast Asia and from across Africa and Europe have built a vibrant, thriving neighbourhood. They volunteer in our schools, care for our elderly and show up for each other. They are the backbone of our community, and I am honoured to stand here on their behalf.

When I talk to newcomers in Davenport, I hear the same thing over and over. They chose Canada because of what this country stands for: fairness, opportunity and the rule of law. They came here to contribute, to raise their families in safety and to be part of something bigger than themselves. That is the promise of this country, and it is a promise we must honour. Every generation of newcomers has made Canada stronger, more innovative and more resilient, and the generation arriving today is no different.

Let me be unequivocal. Anyone in the process of becoming a Canadian, whether they are an asylum seeker, a temporary worker, an international student or in any other immigration stream, who commits a serious crime should face the full consequences of the law, including deportation, period, with zero tolerance. Committing serious crimes while enjoying the privilege of being in Canada is unacceptable, and it will not be tolerated.

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act already provides for exactly that. It defines serious criminality. It provides for inadmissible findings, deportation orders and, in many cases, a permanent ban on returning to Canada. The framework is robust, and it is enforced.

The question before us is not whether criminals should face consequences. They absolutely should, and they do. The question is whether Bill C-220 actually makes Canadians safer or our system fairer. The answer is no.

Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, when a permanent resident or foreign national is sentenced to more than six months of imprisonment, that constitutes serious criminality. They lose the right to appeal their deportation order. For lesser offences, the immigration appeal division can examine factors such as length of time in Canada and the best interests of children.

The law is clear. Serious offences mean serious consequences. Bill C-220 would prohibit judges from even being aware of these consequences when determining a fit sentence. It would force a one-size-fits-all approach, asking courts to ignore the fact that a sentence of six months and a day carries a life-altering, drastically different penalty from a sentence of six months.

Let me correct the misconception. When a judge considers immigration consequences, the offender can still be found inadmissible for serious criminality. They are still subject to a deportation order. There is no free pass in marginal cases. The individual retains the right to argue their case before the Immigration and Refugee Board, an expert, independent tribunal that weighs public safety against individual consequences.

In 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada, under a Conservative government, unanimously recognized in R v. Pham that immigration consequences are a legitimate factor in crafting a fit sentence. The court was explicit: A sentence must always remain proportionate to the crime and the offender's responsibility. The hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill was a cabinet minister when that decision was issued. The Conservatives had two full years to legislate on this if they believed there was a problem. They did not. A decade later, the Conservatives brought forward a bill that ignores the jurisprudence, the evidence and the realities of both the courts and the immigration system.

The opposition members argue that this creates a two-tier justice system. I would argue exactly the opposite. The punishment is already two-tiered. A non-citizen can also face a second and far more severe consequence that a citizen does not: deportation, permanent removal from their family and the only country that many of them may have ever known. Allowing judges to consider that reality is not special treatment. It is what ensures that the total consequence is proportionate.

We have heard examples from members opposite. The Crown already has the ability to appeal any sentence it believes is unfit. Appellate courts can and do intervene. There is no evidence of courts systematically reducing sentences inappropriately. Due process is not a loophole. It is what ensures that enforcement decisions are lawful, credible and sustainable. Bill C-220 would create a disconnect between two statutes that Parliament has designed to work together.

Let me close where I began. Canada's greatness lies in the people who have come here and chosen to build a life in this country. We owe it to them and to every Canadian to maintain a system that is fair, principled and effective. We enforce the law firmly against those who break it, but we must also reject legislation that is built on rhetoric rather than evidence, that would undermine judicial independence and that would make our system less fair without making anyone safer.

On this side of the House, we believe in an immigration system that reflects who we are: a generous, law-abiding, diverse nation that holds people accountable and treats them with fairness. Bill C-220 would not advance that vision. The government cannot support this bill.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise to speak to Bill C‑220, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding immigration status in sentencing. I think it is a shame that we have to talk about immigration this evening because of a bill. What we should be talking about are the business owners and claimants who are paying the price for the unacceptable delays caused by the mismanagement of the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. In Laurentides—Labelle, people are concerned and upset and their trust in democratic institutions is suffering. That is the real problem we should be dealing with.

The Bloc Québécois is cautious about Bill C-220 because this Conservative bill is rife with disinformation, demagoguery and populism. We are getting used to that. This bill is biased because it conflates facts and perceptions. It conflates the law with the conception of an idea and a value rather than what should take precedence in law: the facts. It is actually harmful to democracy, because not relying on facts is harmful to democracy. That is why the Bloc Québécois wants the bill to go to parliamentary committee so that the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights can examine the facts, the reality, the case law, and do diligent work.

The judicial system is under attack across the western world. This is a tactic used by the extreme right and alternative movements. Let us not bring this discussion into our province. Quebec is a place that has been spared this rhetoric, and it is our duty as parliamentarians, but also as Quebeckers, to fight against the current trend of having politics interfere with justice. Since becoming a member of Parliament, I have said this many times, and it worries me: weaponizing the justice system and judges is a road to nowhere. All it does is inflate dubious theories. It is the job of parliamentarians to look into the matter. If there is a problem, then it is up to us to fix it, but please, let us not use partisanship to undermine our institutions.

I have a question for the Conservatives. They claim to be in favour of law and order, so why did the Harper government amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, or the IRPA, to reduce the criterion for serious criminality from two years less a day to six months? I think that is a valid question. Why did the Conservatives amend the IRPA to prohibit a person from appealing a removal order if they are inadmissible on grounds of serious criminality? Generally, those who support law and order also support fairness in the justice system. They support transparency in the justice system. They support a justice system that judges everyone equally. However, that is not the premise of this bill.

The Bloc Québécois agrees with the principle that the effect that a sentence has on the offender's immigration status cannot be the determining factor in sentencing. However, that should not be done with a negative view. The Conservatives mentioned the Pham case, but do they understand it? The 2013 ruling does not state anywhere that the immigration consequences of a sentence must take precedence. The court simply noted that the immigration consequences of a sentence are one consideration among many. In addition, Bill C‑220 also states that a judge would not be able to consider the effect that a sentence might have on a family member. I want to point out that I am deeply uncomfortable with this provision. It could have the effect of undermining the best interests of a child. That is very concerning.

I am also concerned about the Conservatives' attempts to restrict judges' discretion. In order for judges to do their job, they must have the freedom to impose sentences that are individualized and proportionate to the gravity of the offence. They must be able to weigh all the factors. I want to be clear: The Supreme Court does not order judges to impose sentences based solely on a person's immigration status, but rather to consider it as one factor among others so that the sentence and its consequences are proportionate to the gravity of the offence. The Conservatives want a system of revenge. What I want, and what my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois want, is an impartial, transparent justice system that is free of partisanship.

Do we want an American-style system riddled with abuse, or do we want a real justice system? A justice system is what defines a government. I am a sovereignist, as everyone knows. I want Quebec to be a republic, as everyone also knows. In the meantime, I live in Canada and I do not want to live in a society where the justice system is at the mercy of the government in power. That is dangerous.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand today to speak to Bill C-220, a bill that has been very thoughtfully presented to Parliament by my outstanding colleague from Calgary Nose Hill. She has done an exceptional job, not only with this bill but also in pointing out the numerous ways that the Liberal government has taken an immigration system that was once the envy of the world and made it the laughingstock of all people who want to take advantage of Canadian generosity.

The bill is of great importance, not only to my constituents of Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill but indeed to all Canadians. Ten years of disastrous Liberal immigration and soft-on-crime policies has given birth to a two-tiered justice system that prioritizes the comfort and feelings of offenders over the safety of our communities. Right now, due to hug-a-thug Liberal laws, judges can consider immigration status when deciding convicted criminals' sentences. Yes, that is right: If a Canadian and a non-Canadian commit a crime, the Canadian will go to prison, but the non-Canadian will get a bit of a break because they have an immigration status pending.

I do not know how that makes sense. It makes absolutely no sense, as it did not make sense when the member for Davenport said that we would be taking these people away from their families. Here is a news flash for the member for Davenport and for all of the Liberals across the aisle: If someone is a criminal, they belong in jail and they are going to be away from their family anyway. Their family is not going to be in prison with the criminal.

Judges are actively considering immigration status and are reducing sentences for serious criminals, specifically to keep them below the threshold that triggers automatic deportation. Here is another news flash for the Liberals: Canadians do not want non-citizen criminals in their communities. When we allow different sentencing standards based on immigration status, we send a message that the law is negotiable and that Canadian safety is secondary.

Non-citizen criminals are celebrating this weakness. They are celebrating the Liberal laws that allow them to commit heinous crimes and receive reduced sentences to stay in the country where they can continue to terrorize our communities. The Liberals are creating a class of offenders who can commit crimes on Canadian soil without facing the price of losing the privilege to stay here. It is an insult to every law-abiding immigrant who followed the rules, and it undermines the very foundation of equality under the law.

The consequences of this failure are written in the headlines of our local papers. Take the case of Medhani Yohans in Guelph. A non-citizen, high-risk sex offender and frequent flyer in our courts, Yohans was arrested again and again on February 3, 2025, just hours after being released. This is a man who has proven time and time again that he has no regard for Canadian life or law. Why is a non-citizen with a track record still here to victimize our community? This is bewildering, not only to me but also to Canadians across our country.

Even more disturbing is a case from Bradford. A 47-year-old man raped a young girl, resulting in pregnancy. This level of depravity should meet the unyielding force of Canadian law. Instead, our system hit the pause button. The court granted this predator an adjournment, specifically to explore the effect his plea would have on his immigration status. That is mind-blowing. While the victim lived through an unimaginable nightmare, the judicial system allowed accommodation for the perpetrator so he could dodge deportation.

There is also the case of Munir Ahmad Malhi, a former Pakistani cop linked to crimes against humanity. Despite his 37-year career with a force known for atrocities, a federal court judge recently gave him another shot at refugee status so he can stay here and terrorize Canadians. When crimes against humanity are met with a second chance to stay in Canada, our refugee system has lost its moral compass, as I believe the Liberals have. The Liberals' high tolerance for non-citizen criminals extends beyond the courtroom. They are more sympathetic to non-citizen criminals than to the victims who have been raped, murdered, extorted or assaulted.

For years, Conservatives have sounded the alarm about the IRGC, a designated terrorist organization operating freely on Canadian soil. While the Liberals give speeches, the reality on the ground is a disgrace. The CBSA has identified at least 26 individuals currently in Canada who merit deportation due to their ties to this repressive regime. News outlets have reported there are more than 700 individuals in Canada with alleged links to the Iranian regime. Many have been accused of intimidation, surveillance and harassment of our own citizens right here in Canada, in our communities. How many have actually been removed? Here is a newsflash: It is just one. One person has been removed from Canada from all these characters who are here, perpetrating havoc in our communities. There has been just one single deportation, while dozens of regime agents continue to treat Canada as a safe haven, because the Liberal government has allowed that to happen.

The media reports for the last two weeks have been chilling. We have seen reports of IRGC-linked sleeper cells and acts of intimidation against the Iranian diaspora in our communities. This is the safe Canada the Liberals have built, a country where foreign agents feel comfortable to intimidate people on our streets, because they know the government lacks the spine to kick them out.

We are also seeing a surge in non-citizen criminals using the asylum system to avoid accountability. We see it in cases of extortion rings, where individuals, once caught, suddenly claim refugee status to freeze their removal. This is what the Liberal government has allowed. By filing last-minute, baseless claims, extortionists buy years of time in Canada in our backlogged asylum system. That is another Liberal immigration failure, where it is highly possible these non-citizen criminals receive better health care coverage than most Canadians receive at a time when many Canadians cannot find a family doctor.

Here is the reality. Under the Liberals, non-citizen criminals get a pass and victims get punished. If the Liberals spent as much time figuring out how to protect people as they do twisting themselves in knots to be kind to thugs, murderers and rapists, Canada would be safer, and our immigration system would be more respected.

Canadian citizenship is one of the most coveted prizes in the world. Canada offers safety, freedom and opportunity, and in exchange, the newcomer pledges to uphold our laws. When a non-citizen commits a serious crime, they have violated that agreement, and they should be thrown out of our country. It is not fair to Canadians to consider immigration consequences when sentencing convicted criminals.

Actions have consequences. Non-citizens who rape, extort and murder should not be allowed to stay in our country, yet the current system is geared towards letting the criminals stay through endless appeals and lenient sentences. That is why this bill, put forward by my colleague, the member for Calgary Nose Hill, would specify in the Criminal Code that sentences should not depend on the potential impact on the immigration status of a convicted non-citizen offender or that of their family members. It is so desperately needed. Conservatives will always fight to protect Canadians, the value of our citizenship and the safety of every person who lives here.

Becoming a Canadian is a privilege, not a right. Right now, we are losing economically productive immigrant entrepreneurs, job creators and highly skilled workers. They are making productive contributions to the economy and want to stay in Canada to build a better life, but they look at Canada's skyrocketing cost of living and nightmare immigration system and are deciding to move to the United States or back home. We are witnessing a brain drain of the talent we need.

The Liberals' immigration policy seems to be making a trade-off. While they cover for non-citizen criminals to stay in Canada, law-abiding job creators, skilled workers and those humbly looking for a better life, which the vast majority of immigrants are, get left out in the cold. The current trajectory of the government is a betrayal of the Canadian promise to immigrants. Anyone seeking residence or citizenship in Canada has responsibilities as well as rights. Liberals need to stop prioritizing the immigration consequences of criminals and start prioritizing the safety of Canadian families. The vast majority of Canada's immigrants and temporary residents abide by the law. Removing non-citizens convicted of a serious crime is a no-brainer.

I will end with this. There are two directions Canada can go in: the Liberal direction, which is high chaos on everything related to immigration and crime in our country, or the Conservative approach, which is to value Canadian citizenship, have that restored, deport non-citizen serious criminals, reward honest immigrants and restore our immigration system back to a system that Canadians can be proud of again. That is why I wholeheartedly support and would urge every member in the House to support Bill C-220, put forward by my colleague, the member of Parliament for Calgary Nose Hill.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

For her right of reply to conclude the debate, I recognize the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by responding to the member for Davenport. I wholeheartedly look forward to using every ounce of my media reach to refute her position that there is no evidence showing the need for this bill. Much like the government House leader, who said that there was no evidence that rapers had not used these loopholes to remain in the country, I would say to her that I am so looking forward to using that quote over and over again to show how many instances of evidence there are to show the need for it. In the next week, I will be taking that quote from her and repeatedly showing her how many times she is so very wrong.

If there are immigration officials watching in the lobby, I would ask them to tell the member for Davenport to get ready, because she said there was no evidence showing the need for this and I will be strongly refuting her as many times as possible over the next week before the vote to show how much evidence there is, which colleagues have brought forward during this debate, so she can giddy up on that. Here we go.

The second thing is that the member for Davenport said that non-citizen criminals face the consequences of their actions. We know that is not the case. In fact, just to strongly further refute her comment that there is no evidence of this, I will also be refuting that over the next week. Therefore, if members would like to, they can tune into my Substack or any of my social media feeds, where her quote that there is no evidence will be strongly featured over the next week. They should stand by as it will be very awesome.

I want to comment very substantively on some of the concerns from my Bloc colleagues. They talked about the balance between the judiciary and the legislative branches of government. I am concerned that when it comes to immigration law, we have seen a disproportionate influence, particularly at the federal level of the judiciary, and interference not just at the federal level but also at the provincial level. The Supreme Court ruling that was issued on Friday, as it relates to Quebec's decision to restrict benefits to certain classes of non-citizens, is problematic for not just the province of Quebec but every province across the country.

It is also problematic for federal immigration law. Federal immigration law is predicated on the Constitution Act of 1867, which states that not only does this place have the right to make laws over immigration, but the provinces in some aspects do as well, and that non-citizens are treated differently than citizens in Canada. That is what our entire immigration system is predicated on. The Friday Supreme Court ruling, which overturned a Quebec government benefit decision, which was put in place in order to manage a decade of Liberal mismanagement, completely upended that. Therefore, I would say this: We need to reassert our right in this place over the judiciary to make laws when it comes to the immigration system. Members can expect to hear more from the Conservative Party of Canada on that.

On the specific concerns that some of my Bloc Québécois colleagues raised with regard to the Pham decision, I would note this. The court ruling explicitly ruled that this consideration does not constitute a charter right, a remedy or a charter breach. In fact, the ruling did not even mention the charter once. Furthermore, the ruling also made it clear that the flexibility of our sentencing process should not be misused by imposing inappropriate and artificial sentences, and that to do so would be circumventing Parliament's will.

If my Bloc colleagues maintain the right for Quebec to assert its jurisdictional rights on certain grounds, then I would ask them to pay specific attention to what I have clarified here, because what has happened is that federal courts have started to overcome provincial jurisdiction in these matters. That is also part of the reason why I put this bill forward. What we are seeing is that the spirit of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act has been overturned. This bill will correct that.

I encourage all colleagues in this place to vote in favour of it and to stay tuned to my social media.

[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, we request a recorded vote, please.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Pursuing to Standing Order 93, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, March 25, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

The House resumed from March 12 consideration of the motion that Bill C-220, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (immigration status in sentencing), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-220, under Private Members' Business.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #89

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I declare the motion lost.