Evidence of meeting #16 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agenda.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Shall the committee order a reprint of the bill as amended for the use of the House at report stage?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
The bill was carried. I never thought we'd get through it so easily.
I thank all of you for coming together to make this easier.
The parliamentary secretary, Madame Faille, and Mr. Siksay had a couple of meetings on a couple of these amendments. Thank you for that.
Madame Faille.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
You heard Madame Faille. She is recommending that a press release be prepared stating that the bill was carried as amended. How does everybody feel about that?
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Good. We should obviously try to reach unanimity on the contents of the press release and there should be some exchange of correspondence.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Yes. When we get a press release made, we'll bring groups together to have some discussion on it.
Mr. Jaffer.
Conservative
Rahim Jaffer Conservative Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I think probably the department or the minister will send out their own. But if you, as the chair of the committee, want to put something together announcing that we've done this and any inquiries could come initially to you, I think that would be fine, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Thank you. I'll consider that to be a directive from the committee, and I'll move on it.
Liberal
Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Mr. Chair, I only want to draw your attention to the fact that I have a Ukrainian intern in my office, and Ed can go and chat with him in Ukrainian. He heard the basics of the bill, very much liked it, and thought it was fair and just. But he won't be with us any more, as he is leaving soon.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Welcome, and we're sorry to see you go. We're welcoming you and we're saying goodbye to you at the same time. Maybe we'll see you again some time. All the very best to you.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Mr. Chair, if I could just direct a comment to him...[Member speaks in Ukrainian].
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
That was in Ukrainian. I don't think we have any Ukrainian translators in the booth.
Liberal
Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
If you said that in English, you could get it into the record.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Okay. We welcome him here to the committee. It was good to see him here. We hope he had a good stay, had an opportunity to read the bill, and will have a good voyage back to his homeland. We wish him the best.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Okay. Let's move on to number two on the agenda, committee business, notice of motions.
The first motion, of course, is from Mr. Siksay and concerns the remaining 118 stateless Vietnamese refugees in the Philippines.
Mr. Siksay, are you moving that motion?
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
I am, Mr. Chair, but I wonder if I could make an amendment on the numbers. Given the passage of time, there has been some change in the numbers involved, and I wonder if I could change where it says 118; that was a typo we should have corrected in the first place. It was originally 188 when the folks appeared. But it should say 140 now. That's the best information I have from the organization on the ground in the Philippines. So wherever it says 188, it should read 140.
In the fifth “whereas” clause, I think the correct numbers are “23 individuals from seven families,” instead of “27 individuals from eight families.”
The other changes are all the 118 to 140.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Thank you, Mr. Siksay.
You've heard the submission by Mr. Siksay. It doesn't substantially change the motion in any way. So can I take it for granted we will give Mr. Siksay permission to change these numbers?
Okay. So ordered.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Chair, I just wanted to say to the committee that this is something we worked on over the course of two Parliaments. In the last Parliament, a remedy was proposed by the government. Unfortunately, as you can see from that fifth “whereas” clause, it only allowed for the resettlement of 23 individuals. And at the time we discussed this in the last Parliament, around 2,000 people were still in the Philippines. Thanks to the efforts of other countries, that number is down around 140 of the original Vietnamese boat people who didn't have a remedy from the Philippines under the United Nations resettlement plan. And some of those folks have dependants as well. So the actual number of people who may need resettlement is probably slightly higher than 140, but it's around 140 of the original Vietnamese folks.
Conservative
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Chair, I think we've all heard there isn't a durable solution for these people. They missed out on the United Nations programs. They have no legal status in the Philippines. The Philippines government--and we've heard from a number of Philippine government officials--has no plan to deal with these people. It's not on the agenda. It won't happen in the near future or even in the medium future; it's just not on the agenda.
We've seen other countries take initiatives to resettle this last group of refugees from the war in Vietnam. We've also seen that the Vietnamese community in Canada is most anxious to play a part in the resettlement of these folks. That's a community that understands Canada's hospitality and desire to offer protection to refugees. It was quite moving to see them come and want to play a role in that same kind of resettlement as an indication of how much they've become part of Canadian society, and how much they understand Canadian values when it comes to the protection of people in danger around the world.
This motion asks the government to undertake measures. It mentions two options: the country of asylum class and the minister's prerogative around humanitarian and compassionate consideration. I would hope the committee could pass it so we can encourage the government to move to resettle these last remaining folks.
