No, I have not seen a lot in that respect. I think Ms. Chow had some proposals.
Essentially what I hear from the opponents of Bill C-49 is what I would regard, personally, as a kind of ideological or political opposition without grappling with the really hard practical question of how do we create a disincentive to people from paying enormous amounts of money to smugglers to come here in the worst and most dangerous way possible?
I don't think there's been a really close study by the opponents of this bill of the phenomena—the practical, real, concrete phenomena—of the specific smuggling syndicates targeting Canada. What's motivating their clients? How are they operating? How are they bringing people through the transit countries? Where are people sourcing from, where are they coming from originally? Is it India, to some extent, for example, a democracy that respects the rights of Tamils, inter alia?
I think there's been an absence of close and hard analysis on this. The general critique I hear, to be fair, is that we should “crack down and focus on the smugglers”. That's what Bill C-49 does with mandatory minimums of up to 10 years for those involved in facilitating smuggling operations. But let's be honest, that's not sufficient. It's necessary, but not sufficient.
As long as there are people willing to pay $50,000, or money in that range, to come to Canada, there will be people in the black market willing to provide the service. We're not talking about some kind of philanthropic service to bring people who are facing immediate risk to Canada. We're talking about former arms runners who, in the absence of a civil war, are now looking for a new commodity, and they've just determined that's people.
We can't reach the arm of Canadian law into foreign jurisdictions where most of these people are operating, so we need to create disincentives to people on the demand side. The bill is balanced, in my view, by addressing both the supply and the demand side.