Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 21st, 2006

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Yes, the motion can move forward, but if it's going to go forward as a report, Mr. Chair, which we say it is, then I would like to have the opportunity to have a dissenting opinion to the report. Certainly the report shouldn't go to the House until I've had an opportunity to write why I feel it should not go in the fashion that it's going, because I think it's inappropriate. It would be up to this committee and the chair to allow a dissenting opinion to be put forward with the report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes, the clerk informs me that's in order.

Please so do.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Yes, I would like to so do. It would seem to me appropriate because I will mention in my opinion, if I haven't had the opportunity to hear one shred of evidence, that it is even awkwarder or more difficult to write a dissenting report and that the committee should give me at least the opportunity to call some people to deal with the fact of the dissent in the report. Otherwise I'll be writing it in a vacuum, based on procedure, simply because I have nothing before me to base it on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

The question, then, is whether we can append the dissenting opinion to the report. Agreed?

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Excuse me--I wanted to make another provision.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Let's just deal with this first, and then we can--

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

I am dealing with this, Mr. Chair; that's exactly the point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, go ahead.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

I'm not against Mr. Komarnicki or anyone else making a dissenting report, of course. However, I would like to remind Mr. Komarnicki--because he's obviously forgotten that tomorrow is the last day--that if anyone wants to table a report, it has to be done before tomorrow night.

I would also suggest very strongly that we give a deadline--I'm sure Mr. Komarnicki's never thought of that--by which he must give his dissenting report, so that we can table both the main report and the dissenting report at the same time to the House, bearing in mind that the House will rise tomorrow evening.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Do you mean the dissenting report would be an appendage to the report?

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Exactly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Bearing in mind that the House rises tomorrow evening....

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

The motion didn't say that we report to the House during this sitting; we can report to this House now or in September, and I should be given a reasonable opportunity to write the dissenting report.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

The whole point of this, Mr. Komarnicki, is to stop the deportation of people. We're not going to wait until September to ask the government to do this.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

It would only be reasonable to give an opportunity to write a dissenting report beyond whatever time the House adjourns. Certainly it would seem logical to perhaps put a limitation on it, but not a 12-hour or 24-hour limitation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Telegdi.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Chairman, one could say that the committee has had problems with the parliamentary secretary's report before on this committee, particularly when they want to write minority reports to the committee. I remember the same thing happened at some point last year.

Be that as it may, the reality is what we're trying to do is to get this report to the House. If the parliamentary secretary were really keen on writing a minority report, he would have been better off to have supported the motion on Monday, because I think it's very much the intent of this committee that this report be tabled in the House before we go for break.

The reality is that the previous committee has heard all sorts of evidence on this particular issue. We heard about it in committee; we heard about it as we went across the country. I dare say that if it had not been for the inopportune election, if you will, this issue would have been addressed; it was, as I mentioned before, a top priority for the previous Minister of Immigration. When we had the present Minister of Immigration, I saw some hopeful signs in his looking at this whole issue of undocumented workers.

One thing we did say as well is that instead of dedicating resources to rounding up undocumented people and getting them out of the country, the government essentially should focus on something everybody on the committee agrees on. We've got two or three thousand criminals who should definitely be rounded up, and priority should be given to them, so the government officials can continue in that, but we need to find out the extent to which we are cutting off our nose to spite our face if they continue with the deportations. We're taking people who are contributing to the economy. They're keeping the economy moving, they're paying taxes, and they're settled here. They will be greatly missed by the economy.

The committee has always been on this issue, and I think we could all agree that we should have a priority on those two or three thousand people. Those are serious criminals that we really want to get rid of, as opposed to getting rid of the bricklayer or the carpenter or the mechanic. That's the message that we want to see happen.

You cannot say you want to add a report and you need so many days to frustrate the will of the committee. It would have been better had you not objected to the motion, which was proper and was found to be proper; then you would have had some more time to do that.

The fact is that tomorrow is the final day, and we want to leave a very strong message with the government that we want the deportation of contributing members of undocumented workers stopped.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Komarnicki, do you have a final submission?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

There's no question that the government has treated with humanitarian and compassionate grounds those that are undocumented. There are many of them; they've contributed significantly, and we've talked about the issue of the need for the system itself to be looked at. That's what we were saying we were going to do to ensure that these individuals who are great contributors to our society can come in legitimately and in the proper channels.

There needs to be a way found to deal with the situation as we have it on the ground. Everybody understands that it is a significant and important problem, but the previous government has not done any fewer deportations than have been taking place here. Certainly all due consideration has been taken into account.

This motion had been put forward, only to be pulled from this committee after it sat here for maybe a week or two, if I'm not mistaken, by Mr. Siksay, and then put down unannounced to the steering committee, for whatever reason I don't know. It was jigged with two or three other motions. Then it resurfaced here just recently, on Monday, when I took the objection, which was the first time there was an opportunity to object to it--on, I think, appropriate grounds--and the ruling came the first meeting after, so we're talking a pretty rapid succession.

Let me tell you that everyone in government and on sides opposite is aware of this issue. Outside of trying to make some extra noise on this issue, given that the House is adjourning and rising in very short order, I think that it would not change a whole lot of matters to have it go forward in due course.

In fact, if I'm not mistaken on this particular motion--and it may have changed since it came from the subcommittee--I think the request was that the House report back to this committee after 120 days. I'm not sure if that's still being pursued, but it was pursued initially.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

That wasn't part of the reasoning.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I'm not sure if it was part of the reasoning or not, but that was part of what was in play when the first portions were put forward. If it's not asking for a report back, then it's nothing more than an opinion and not asking for any response back. I understand that initially there was a request to that degree--so if there isn't a request even for--

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Point of order, Mr. Chair. Information is being promulgated, so we should be clear--

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

If there isn't a request back from the House with respect to this report, where is the point?

I don't know what's reasonable for a dissent, but it will all be in the hands of this committee, because obviously what I'll be saying in my dissent, essentially, is that's not the way to proceed--even if the committee has in the past--because you don't make reports in vacuums. Where I come from, you make them based on facts and opinions and positions, and if you don't expect a report back from the government, why are you making the report in the first place, when the reasoning behind it was to get something back from the government? As I understood it in the first place, if we're not asking for a response back, what are we really doing and what's the big hurry to get a dissent filed before the House rises? If that's what the committee wants to do, I'll do it, but I'm certainly not happy with that state of events or how we are proceeding on an issue of this importance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We can call for a vote for a dissenting opinion to the report, or I can continue to recognize people who want to speak. Is it possible to put this to a vote now, so that we can move on to clause-by-clause consideration? Are we agreed on that? Okay.

All in favour for a dissenting--